LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Slielf..Hll'5390 



UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 
»- T I 



^'^•^ 






i^mi-m 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



BY 



ROBERT P. PORTER. 



" Protection is equally necessary, and equally beneficial, to one part of the 
country as to another; and that which makes the Nation rich cannot make a 
fraction of it poor."— Colton. 



'V 




NEW YORK: 

J. S. OGILVIE & COMPANY, 

31 Rose Street. 



\ 






Copyright, 1885 
By J. S. Ogilvie & Company. 



PREFACE. 



The many demands made by letter and through the press 
generally for the Industrial Letters, originally published 
in the New York Tribune, and also the second series, 
written for the Philadelphia Press, Chicago Inter-Ocean, 
and San Francisco Chronicle in a more permanent form, 
decided the writer to collect those relating to Great Britain 
—numbering one hundred — for pubHcation in book form, in- 
cluding a special edition for the intelligent workingman, for 
whom they should have a special interest. 

Excepting the correction of typographical errors, no 
attem.pt has been made at revision, it being deemed better 
not to sacrifice freshness of impression to the finish result- 
ing from rewriting. 

Should the demand for the present volume justify the 
enterprise, a second, comprising the same number of Let- 
ters from the principal industrial centers of France, 
Grermany, Austria, Hungary, Belgimn, Holland, Denmark, 
Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland, will be issued. 

Robert P. Porter, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

1. The Arizona—Introduction 9 

3. England — Her Start in the Race 11 

3. Scotland — Industrial Centers 15 

4. The North of England 17 

5. The Midlands 20 

6. Glasgow— Its Tradition 23 

7. Glasgow — Infant Industries 27 

8. Glasgow To-day 29 

9. Paisley— The Bewitched Weaver 33 

10. Paisley— Like a Fairy Story 37 

11. The Clyde — Classic River of the Ship-builders' Art 40 

12. Dumbarton — Picturesque and Busy. 44 

13. The Jolly Jailers of Dundee 50 

14. Dundee — Town Life in Olden Times 52 

15. Dundee — Among the Mill Hands 56 

16. Coatbridge — Squalid Misery 62 

17. Coatbridge— At the Theater Royal 64 

18. Coatbridge — ** In Hopes to be Mair Wise" 65 

19. Dewsbury — Beer Shops and Gin Shops 68 

20. The World's Woolen Region 71 

21. The Barber of Preston % 

22. Bradford — Ancient and Modern. 81 

23. The Dialect of the Worsted Region 84 

24. Bradford— Decline of the Worsted Trade 85 

25. Migration of the Worsted Trade 90 

26. Old Time Yorkshire 91 

27. Mr. Henry Mitchell 94 

28. Bradford Society and Wages 95 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

29. Manningham and Saltaire — An Affable Silk Manufacturer. 101 

30. The Shady Side of Bradford 105 

31. Halifax— Dark Deeds , ... 109 

32. Halifax— Its Departed Glories 113 

33. Leeds — Giant Industries 116 

34. Leeds — Competition 121 

35. Huddersfield— Robin Hood 126 

36. Huddersfield — Pandemonium Itself 129 

37. Huddersfield Logic 133 

38. Leeds— The Clothiers of Defoe's Time 136 

39. Leeds — *' In My Experience Never " 141 

40. The Northern Coal and Iron Districts 145 

41. A Vast Monopoly 149 

42. England's Coal and Iron Fields 151 

43. Sunderland and Hartlepool 155 

44. Middlesborough — An American Growth 157 

45. Middlesborough — Among the Iron Workers 160 

46. The Iron and Steel Trade of England 164 

47. Lye Waste — A Desolate Region 172 

48. Among the Nailmakers 176 

49. '' A Cry from the Black Country" 185 

50. Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton 186 

51. The Degradation of Woman 188 

52. The English Census 190 

53. Birmingham — The Merry, Merry Pauper 198 

54. The Terrors of the Coal Mine 210 

55. Sheffield— A Gloomy Erebus 218 

56. Labor and Wages , 225 

57. A Walk Through the Potteries 229 

58. Hanley— Ground Clay Made Perfect 233 

^9. Bird's-eye View of England's Factories 239 

60. Cardiff and Swansea 248 

61. Merthyr Tydvil 255 

62. Dowlais— An Industrial Graveyard 258 

63. Bristol— Its Mildewy Aspect 263 

64. Bristol— Memoirs of the Old Town 266 

65. Coventry— Its Early History 269 

66. Coventry— Sad Stories from Real Life 273 



CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

67. Starvation Wages in Coventry 277 

68. Norwich— Decline of the Silk Industry 281 

69. Macclesfield— Cause of the Decline 285 

70. Worcester — Its Gable Roofs and Quaint Courts 289 

7ir Worcester— The Royal Porcelain Works 292 

72. Nottingham— The Old City of Tiggocobawc 296 

73. Nottingham — Its Lace-Makers 299 

74. Leicester — A Famous Town 305 

75. Leicester— The Neutral Mr. Haxby 309 

76. Wolverhampton — An Irritable Solicitor 315 

77. Interview with Percy Gilchrist 320 

78. York— Gray-Walled and Ancient 324 

79. York— The Railroad Question 326 

80. Crewe— ''Thank ye, Sir!" 334 

81. Derby — Comparative Cost of Traveling 338 

82. Manchester — The Cotton Region 341 

83. Effect of a Free-Trade Policy 346 

84. Labor and Wages in Manchester 350 

85. The Dwellers of Coketown 354 

86. Furness Abbey— A Tragic Story 362 

87. Barrow-in-Furness— A Novel Town 366 

88. I. Lothian Bell 369 

89. Liverpool — Tbe Idea She Symbolizes 371 

90. Liverpool— Enriched by the Blood of Slaves 374 

91. England's Shipping Industry 377 

92. Newcastle-on-Tyne— " Canny " but '' Coaly " 381 

93. Will Free-Trade Newspapers Copy and Explain? 386 

94. Worstead — A Specimen of Mediaeval Humanity 390 

95. England's Protective Policy 395 

96. In Petticoats of Stammel Red 397 

97. ABitter Fight 399 

98. Northampton— St. Crispin's Trade 401 

99. Ancient and Modern Snobopolis 404 

00. A Sermon in 284 Words 407 

101. How the Shoemakers Live 408 

102. They Want Free Trade 411 

103. Decline of British Agriculture. 414 

104. London — Labor and Wages — Conclusion 417 



BREADWINNERS ABROAD. 



The Arizona— Introduction. 

The popular idea of a passage at this season of the year 
across the Atlantic is associated with high and bleak winds, 
heavy seas, excessive cold, and no chance for exercise on 
deck. And, as a rule, I suppose the popular notion is cor- 
rect, though up to this, the seventh day out, we have had 
no use for the table-racks; the weather has been bright and 
mild, every one has been enjoying himself on deck, not a 
half dozen missing from the table, and the sea as calm as 
midsummer. The satisfactory surroundings rather encour- 
age an attempt to write an introductory to the series of 
letters from the industrial centres of Great Britain which I 
hope to prepare for The Tribune, Last spring, when Eng- 
land looked hke a beautiful garden, I made a rapid move 
through most of her quaint old cathedral cities and great 
manufacturing centers, and took what could hardly be called 
more than a superficial dip into the rich history of many of 
the old corporations, and a passing glance at the prodigious 
industrial progress of those northern and north-western 
cities that have made her the workshop of the world. The 
work laid out should have occupied at least twelve months, 
but I was called home to take part in a more practical and 
difficult, though not more interesting, inquiry, and a few 
weeks later, after bidding adieu to the cathedral towns, rich 
in all the antiquarian loves, and indeed in all that shows the 



10 BREAD WINNERS ABROAD, 

history of our ancestors, I was speeding through the great 
centers of industrial energy in the newer western world — 
travelhng by night and listening to testimony in the day. 

It was a rare experience, and one calculated to awaken 
new interest in the industrial and commercial history and 
progress of England and the United States, and to create a 
desire for more time and better opportunity for investiga- 
tion and reflection. 

While the average American is better acquainted with 
what may be called historic England than the average 
Englishman, the testimony of over six hundred intelligent 
witnesses before the Tariff Commission shows how httle 
definite knowledge even representatives of American in- 
dustries have of industrial England. On the important 
question of the amount of wages paid to operatives in Eng- 
land, as compared with the amount paid for the same work 
in the United States, but six out of the six himdred who 
gave testimony presented exact information, and yet the 
basis of the protective system is the difference in the cost 
of home and f oreigm labor. The difference in the purchas- 
ing power of wages, another vital element in tariff legisla- 
tion, was only touched on in a desultory manner by wit- 
nesses here and there who had inquired the price of clothing 
for workingmen at home and abroad, or who from obser- 
vations believed a dollar would buy more provisions in the 
United States than in England, or who had arrived at 
conclusions by reading consular reports. The social con- 
dition of artisans and laborers in Europe and America, 
another important element, was wholly overlooked in the 
testimony, if I may except a few partisan statements on 
both sides, none of which assumed a higher value than 
prejudiced impressions. 

These brief hints of imperfections in a labor which Con- 
gress decided should be performed so rapidly indicate the 
rich unexplored field in Great Britain for careful work and 
study in a direction that cannot fail to be interesting, even 
if it should fall far short of results important enough to 



ENOLANDSER START IN THE RACK^ H 

take part in the settlement of broad economic questions. 
Four times have I traversed the manufacturing regions of 
the United States. Once I saw them lurid with the flames 
of Pittsburgh ; and as I traveled from city to city, one day 
conversing with the socialist in jail and the next day with 
the capitalist in his marble residence, I had abundant op- 
portimity of observing the weakness as well as the strength 
of the American system. A few years later, when better 
times dawned upon the country, I was sent through the 
same regions and witnessed the awakening of American 
manufacturing. A third opportunity came in carrying out 
a branch of the census work, and the fourth with the Tariff 
Commission. With the knowledge of our home industries 
that these inquiries have afforded, I have gladly accepted 
the mission of the Tribune to continue the investigation of 
these questions in Great Britain — ^to visit the great indus- 
trial centres to find out how the working people live and 
how much they earn ; how far capital and machinery and 
credit are concentrated in the hands of the few ; what will 
be the ultimate effect on her industries of the dependence 
for food supplies on countries thousands of miles distant; 
and what are really the chances for a man to rise out of the 
wage-earning classes. The introductory to such an inquiry 
must necessarily point out some of the characteristics of 
the industrial history of the country to be visited ; present 
*a general idea of the distribution of the industries and the 
cities and regions to be visited. With this in view, perhaps 
no apology is needed for what follows. 



II. 

England— Her Start in the Race. 

At the opening of the present century England, though 
politically a first-class power, had accomphshed none of her 



12 BREAD 'WINNEBS ABROAD. 

prodigious industrial progress. Manchester was not glory- 
ing in her tall and ever-smoking chimneys, but was ^*an 
inland town of no pretensions for beauty, and at some dis- 
tance from the sea." Liverpool had scarcely any of her 
glorious docks. The great ocean steamers which now al- 
most daily ply between New York and England had not 
yet found their way to her harbor. Leeds and Bradford 
were not very conspicuous either for trade or manufacture. 
Even London, the only place of real importance in the 
kingdom, had not a tithe of the shipping and commerce 
which now enrich the banks of the Thames. 

The quantity of coal annually mined in Great Britain did 
not exceed ten milUon tons, while to-day it has reached one 
hundred and forty million tons. Levi, in his History of 
Commerce^ has almost dramatically shown that with the 
dawn of the present century a rapid and wonderful change 
was produced in commerce and industry by the expansion 
of some of the leading commercial towns. Liverpool de- 
rived enormous benefits from the extension of manufac- 
tures in Lancashire, from the rapid increase of population 
in the United States, from the new acquisitions of England 
in Canada, and the extended cultivation of the West Indies. 
Birmingham felt all the advantages of the opening of the 
Staffordshire and Worcestershire canals, which enabled her 
to receive all her supphes of coal and materials for manu- 
facture and building at prices much under the usual car-^ 
riage rates. 

The inventions of Watt, of Hargreaves, of Arkwright, 
and of Crompton, though hindered by prejudices, were 
slowly revolutionizing the industrial system of England. 
**What England possessed then, as she does now," says 
Levi, ^' was a geographical situation, the most favorable for 
purposes of maritime commerce, in close proximity to the 
continent of Europe, and bordering on the ocean, the great 
open highway to America; mineral riches of enormous 
value, and, above all, a people of sturdy race, tbe Anglo- 
Saxon, distinguished for an innate sentiment of independ- 



ENGLAND—HER START IN THE RACE, 13 

ence and right, for energy of character and aptitude for work, 
for capacity for material conquests, and courage and tact 
as colonizers and discoverers." At this time, strange as it 
may seem, of all British industries the cotton was the least 
conspicuous. Cotton was too dear to enter into the com- 
mon dress of people, until the ingenuity of Lewis Paul, 
Lawrence Earnshaw, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, 
and Peel gave England the factory system, and changed 
Lancashire from an agricultural county to the more active 
and stirring occupations of industry and manufacture. 

The woolen was an old Enghsh industry. Since the time 
Defoe took his famous journey through ''the Island of 
Great Britain" Norwich had been known for her baize, Sud- 
bury for her serges, Colchester for her broadcloth, Glouces- 
ter for her cloth, and Kendal for her coarse cloth. Even 
London and York continued for a considerable time to be 
important centres of the woolen industry. But, says Levi, 
the increasing prices of provisions, high rates of wages, 
difficulty of obtaining commodious streams for the scour- 
ing and fulhng of cloth, and the restrictions imposed by 
the municipalities, drove the woolen manufacture away to 
the villages and townships of Yorkshire ; and these villages, 
as I shall show in subsequent letters, were destined to be- 
come the greatest woolen- producing region in the world. 
England never looked favorably on the linen industry, and 
it was left to Ireland or Scotland. In the iron industry not 
much progress had been made at the beginning of the pres- 
ent century. In 1768 South Staffordshire had no furnace 
for making charcoal iron, and only nine furnaces where pit 
coal was used, producing fifteen tons each per week, while 
in all other parts of England there were twenty -four char- 
coal furnaces and forty-four pit-coal furnaces. Though 
possessing all the materials for the fabric of earthenware, it 
was not until about this time that the skill of Josiah Wedg- 
wood brought the Enghsh potteries into importance. Be- 
fore this England had depended almost entirely on the im- 
portation of pottery from France, Germany, and Italy. 



14 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

Added to all this came the improvements in the steam- 
engine and the beginning of an era of chemical discoveries, 
both important elements in industrial progress. 

With these triumphs over physical and moral objects 
came increasing opportunities of profitable labor and a 
great increase in the population, especially in the number 
engaged in manufacture. The large cities had begun to 
grow. In 1811 England had only twelve cities and towns 
with a population exceeding 30,000. At the close of the 
first decade of the last half-century she had thirty-one 
cities and towns of 30,000 population and upward. Lanca- 
shire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, and Warwickshire, with 
London, are the most densely populated regions of England, 
and contain in the aggregate nearly twelve millions, or half 
the population of England and Wales. Manchester and 
Salford, which at the beginning of this century numbered 
hardly 100,000, have increased to nearly 600,000; Birming- 
ham, from 80,000 to over 400,000; Liverpool, from 100,000 
to over 550,000; Leeds, from 60,000 to over 300,000. But 
this great growth of the population of cities in a country 
that has no land for the unemployed cannot be looked upon 
as an unmixed good. It has been recently said by a well- 
known English essayist that the development of industrial 
England has proceeded with a rapidity altogether unprece- 
dented in human history. This is true, but this enrich- 
ment cannot be attributed to Free Trade. The mastery of 
man over nature has increased in an almost immeasurable 
ratio during the last generation. Kailways, telegraphs, 
ocean steamers, submarine cables, have brought the peoples 
of the world together and increased the wealth- producing 
capacity of man. England stood ready for the race at the 
start. Professor Sumner said before the Tariff Commission 
that Protection had put England back a century. What 
particularly erroneous history of British commerce has the 
Professor read? With the change in the whole tide of 
human affairs no legislation could have kept England back 
a century. Here is what an Enghsh reviewer says of this 



SCOTLAND'-INDUSTRIAL CENTERS, 15 

period : ^^ We English, very iightly handicapped in the race, 
with our cheap coal, with our densely crowded cities and 
socialized workshops, with the first-fruits of mechanic^J 
invention, with accumulated capital at our command, had 
the heels of the rest of the world from the start. During 
the whole of this period, from 1848 to 1878, we had almost 
undisputed control of the markets of the globe." But at 
the same time ^'the leaps and bounds of commerce have 
given far more wealth to the upper classes than comfort or 
well-being to the lower." These are some of the questions 
worth a careful study. 



in. 

Scotland— Industrial Centers. 

To-morrow night I start for Glasgow, where I begin my 
tour of the industrial regions of Great Britain. Take a good 
map of the British Isles and glance at Scotland in the vicin- 
ity of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Then draw with a pencil a 
rectangle with one of the four angles at Toward Point (near 
Greenock and Dumbarton), the second at Dundee, the third 
at Ayr, and the fourth at Dunbar, and within this space are 
the manufacturing regions of Scotland. This area includes 
in some cases aU, and in others the most populous parts of 
the counties of Perth, Fife, Stirling, Renfrew, Ayr, Lanark, 
Edinburgh, Dumbarton, Kinross, Clackmannan, and Lin- 
hthgow. Within this rectangle is an area of about four mil- 
hon acres, or one-fifth of Scotland, and a population of 
2,300,000, while the remaining sixteen milhon acres boast a 
population of but 1,450,000 — estimating the total population 
according to the census of 1881 at 3,750,000, in round figures. 
Undoubtedly the growth of manufacturing in this section 
of Scotland may be largely traced to the coal-fields which 
are almost entirely within these Hues. The Ayrshire coal- 



16 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

field has ninety-nine coal-mines ; the coal-field of the Clyde 
basin, with Glasgow as a center, no less than 310 mines ; 
farther north nearly to Stirling, the Clackmannan basin, 
with thirty-nine mines ; then the narrow basin rimning east 
along the banks of the Forth to Kilrenny, with thirty-seven 
mines ; Lothians coal-fields running south-west from Edin- 
burgh, with thirty mines ; and at the extreme south-west 
the Lower Carboniferous coal continuation of the Cumber- 
land region. Nearly one million tons of pig-iron were pro- 
duced in 1881 in this region, mostly in the counties of Ayr 
and Lanark. Coatbridge, near Glasgow, is the center of 
this iron trade, this town and several others in its immedi- 
ate neighborhood having been practically created by the 
industry. 

Within a Hmited area, it is said there are more blast-fur- 
naces and a greater output of iron than are to be found in 
any other region of the world. No less than seventy-two of 
the places where iron mining is carried on in Scotland are 
located within the imaginary Hues I have designated, and 
only fourteen places north and ten places south of them. 
The manufacture of textile goods (both woolen, fiax, and 
cotton) is carried on at 102 places (many of which are very 
important) within the rectangle, and, including Aberdeen, 
in about fifty places north and twenty -seven locations south 
of the lines. The principal points to be visited in this part 
of Great Britain will therefore be the cities within what 
may be called the industrial portion of Scotland, comprising 
Glasgow, with a population of 511,000, which perhaps was 
never in a more flourishing condition than it is at the pres- 
ent day ; yet side by side with its prosperous commerce and 
its seats of learning, it can show as much misery and can 
point to as much vice as any city of its size in the empire. 
The growth of the city is the most interesting feature in its 
history. Half a million of people fight the battle of life 
round the spot where St. Mungo is supposed to have pitched 
his tent. For Bishop Eae's one bridge (finished in 1345) 
there are now five, and for the sixteen smelting-furnaces of 



THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 17 

1830 there are now ten times the number. Iron, coal, cot- 
ton, and its dye of Turkey red, enter largely into the causes 
of its prosperous industry. Time-honored Edinburgh, with 
228,000 inhabitants; Dundee, with its population of 143,000, 
where the linen factories and the iron-works have inter- 
ruptedly flourished since the Stuarts ceased to trouble the 
land; the comparatively modem town of Greenock, with 
68,000 inhabitants, and its important beet-root sugar inter- 
ests; Paisley, within seven miles of Glasgow, with a world- 
wide renown for its manufactures; Perth, the ''Fair City," 
with 30,000, rich in antiquities, and now celebrated for 
dye-works; Dumbarton, an important seat of the ship- 
building interest, with 14,000 people; and Stirling, celebrated 
in history, with a populace at the present time of 16,000. 



IV. 

The North of England. 

Leaving Edinburgh and coming south, the next places of 
industrial importance to visit will be the principal towns of 
the great northern coal-field of Durham and Northumber- 
land. The cities of this region are Newcastle, with 146,000 
inhabitants, where coal was first worked in 1260, and 
around which over fifty important colHeries are located; 
Gateshead, a place of considerable antiquity and noted for 
grindstones; Sunderland, near which are some very deep 
mines; Durham, noted for ^*wood, water, maids and mus- 
tard;" Stockton and Darlington, where the first railroad 
was laid; and that region of country along the estuary of 
the Tees, with its center at Middlesborough, which owes its 
great importance to the expansion of iron manufacture. 

The remainder of industrial England can be easily desig- 
nated on the map by tracing with a pencil an imaginary 
South American continent, with Lancashire, divided at the 
2 



18 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

Eiver Eibble, including Preston and Burnley, and the north- 
ern boundary hne of the West Eiding of Yorkshire, for its 
northern boundary, and Tewkesbury, in Worcestershire, 
for its Cape Horn, or southern extremity ; for the eastern 
boundary of this great manufacturing area I shall take the 
Eiver Trent as far as Burton, and then the eastern bound- 
ary line of Staffordshire and Worcestershire until we reach 
the southern point at Tewkesbury ; for the western bound- 
ary the coast to Liverpool, and then the Eiver Weaver to a 
point just beyond Nantwich; from thence the western 
boundary of Staffordshire as far as Bewdley, and from that 
point the Severn to the southern extremity of Worcester- 
shire. It will at once be seen that I have included in this 
great manufacturing district South Lancashire, the West 
Eiding of Yorkshire, that part of Derbyshire and Notting- 
hamshire west of the Trent, the section of Cheshire east of 
the Severn, all of Staffordshire, and that part of Worcester- 
shire east of the Severn. It includes the cotton, the woolen, 
the lace, the iron, the pottery, and, indeed, the principal 
manufacturing region of the empire, and embraces all the 
great industrial towns. To thoroughly study this part of 
England is the only road to the secret of her wealth, and 
the only way of forecasting the probabiHties of her contin 
ued progress; and in prosecuting this work what a rich 
cluster of great industrial centers must be visited ! Proba- 
bly in no country can be found in such a narrow area as I 
have described so many cities famed throughout the globe 
for the products of their workshops. Beginning at the 
north-western corner of our imaginary continent with 
Preston, we find it noted in the seventeenth century for 
"its checks and unbleached grays;" Burnley is the place 
where Hargreaves, the carpenter, invented the spinning- 
jenny ; Burnley, a modern town with extensive cotton-mills ; 
Chorley, celebrated alike for its slate, coal, and cotton; 
Eochdale, the center of the flannel trade; Wigan, famous 
for cannel coal, tall chimneys, quaint streets, and a church 
built in Edward III.'s reign; Bolton, a city in which, as 



THE NORTE OF ENGLAND. 19 

early as 1760, cotton, velvets, and muslins were first manu- 
factured on a large scale by Arkwright's machinery, and in 
which Arkwright once lived as a barber; Oldham, a noted 
manufacturing town, whose inhabitants seemed rough, 
hearty, and industrious, and Warrington, known alike for 
its cotton, fustians, pins, glass, and beer. Besides these, 
Lancashire boasts Liverpool, which was made "a port of 
the sea forever" by Henry II., and Manchester and Salford, 
the industrious progress of all of which will in themselves 
be worth the space devoted to this entire letter. 

In the West Riding of Yorkshire we have Leeds, with 
310,000 inhabitants, which before the woolen trade drifted 
to Yorkshire was nothing but a moorland tract of little 
value. Bradford, with a population of 180,000, the great 
seat of the worsted trade, is only eleven miles from Leeds. 
It is located on the Yorkshire Hills, where three vaUeys 
and three branch railroads meet; and of it was said three 
centuries ago, ^'It stood much by clothing." Mr. Walter 
White, in his record of a walk in Yorkshire, distinguishes 
between the glories of Leeds and Bradford by describing 
Leeds as famous for broadcloth, and Bradford as really a 
grand mart for stuffs and worsted goods. It was probably 
a boy belonging to a Leeds school who replied to a query put 
to him at an examination, as to what Bradford was famous 
for, by saying that Bradford was famous for shoddy. It 
has been said — and I must say, after spending several 
days last spring in both cities— with some truth that, with 
prosperity, something like the envy that exists between 
Chicago and St. Louis moves the susceptible and sensitive 
pulses of Leeds and Bradford respectively. The former 
triumphed when it not only built a lofty town-hall, but 
crowned it with a lofty tower. The story is told of how 
painfully the heart of all Leeds was stirred when it was 
known that a letter had reached the post-office there bear- 
ing the inscription, '^ Leeds, near Bradford." It was as if 
the Bradfordians had erected a loftier town hall, and 
crowned it with a more majestic tower than the edifice of 



20 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

which Leeds was proud, as a symbol of its supremacy. 
Near here is HaUfax, noted four centuries ago for ^^a gal- 
lows on Gibbet Hill and thirteen houses," now the center of 
the cloth trade, and contains 74,000 inhabitants. Sheffield, 
with 285,000 people, black, dingy, and unattractive, in some 
narts abounding in wretchedness, and yet the great seat of 
uiie cutlery trade, and situated in a beautiful location on the 
E,iver Sheaf, where it joins the Don. Huddersfield, with 
38,000 population, stands on the hill, over the Colne, and 
near here was the nunnery where Robin Hood was bled to 
death by a nun, and here may still be seen his grave. 
Dowsbury, where broadcloth and cotton goods are made, 
and Wakefield, celebrated for wool and worsted yarn and 
rope factories. 



V. 

The Midlands. 



In that part of Nottingham included in the area to be vis- 
ited we have East Ratford, noted for '^hats, sail-cloth, and 
paper;" Mansfield, for hosiery and lace; Newark, manufac- 
turing *^ a little lace and more beer;" Southwell, and many 
smaller manufacturing towns ; and, lastly, the Queen of the 
Midland Districts, beautiful Nottingham. Of this city Herr 
Hemnich said: '^That seems to me the most ancient city 
that I have yet seen in England." But it has been aptly 
said that in Nottingham the useful always had precedence 
of the ornamental. Nottingham made stockings before it 
made lace; but it was a gentleman, says Dr. Doran, 
who invented the stocking frame, and an ordinary Not- 
tingham stocking-weaver who first made bobbinet, by so 
adapting his frame as to make it produce the imitation of 
lace after it had woven the reality of stockings. Soon after 
the Rev. William Lea invented the stocking-frame at the 



THE MIDLANDS. 21 

end of the sixteenth century, the old trunk-hose sKpped 
away from the Umbs of our ancestors. Nearly two hun- 
dred years later— that is to say, in 1770— Hammond, a 
weaver, was sitting at one of Lea's old-fashioned frames, 
and as he phedhis task his thoughts dwelt on the expensive 
pillow-lace made of flax thread, by aid of fingers and bob- 
bins, and he thought of the old Italian lace made by the 
needle, of the costly productions of Brussels, Alengon, and 
Valenciennes, of Honiton lace, made like the ItaHan, and of 
Buckingham lace, which more nearly resembled the com- 
moner point d' Alengon. The result of these thoughts was 
the far-famed bobbinet which made Nottingham famous 
even in bazaars of Eastern Ind. It is still the center of the 
cottonhosiery and bobbinet trade. 

In the portion of Derbyshire included in the area under 
discussion we have the interesting town of Stavely ; Derby, 
noted for lace-making, iron and brass manufacturing, for its 
ribbons, and for silk-throwing; Buxton, for its "Buxton dia- 
monds," and Chesterfield, for its tobacco factories. 

As we enter Staffordshire, the entire county being in- 
cluded in our area, the first important district is the pottery 
region, including Stoke, Burslem, Hanley, Tunstall, and a 
number of other places, all of which, since the time of Wedg- 
wood, have been noted for the manufacture of earthen- 
ware. The account of the trip through this region will be 
of considerable interest on the other side of the Atlantic, as 
the United States still imports over half the amount of 
earthen and glass consumed. Stafford is noted for boots 
and shoes : Burton and Litchfield for their famous ale, and 
Dudley, with 88,000 inhabitants, raised into importance by 
its iron and coal works; Wednesbury, with 125,000 people, 
almost wholly engaged in the iron trade ; Wolverhampton, 
an ancient town founded by King Egbert's sister, now the 
seat of the iron trade of the " Black Country" and contain- 
ing 165,000 inhabitants. The "Black Country" is a region 
of Staffordshire covering about thirty square miles of bar- 
ren soil, beneath which are rich crops of coal, iron, and 



22 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

stone. There are no fields, no trees, nothing in the land- 
scape but smoking chimneys, heaps of slag, blast furnaces 
belching forth red flames and the most dilapidated houses 
where the operatives live. About the mines and furnaces 
and around the heaps of slag in the Black Country may be 
seen, by the glare of the furnaces by night and day, the 
stolid animal faces of the women, with shoeless feet and 
uncovered legs and arms begrimed with clotted filth, assist- 
ing the men in their work. Indeed, savage-featured, reck- 
less, dirty men and women, whose main enjoyment seems 
fighting and carousing, form the chief attraction of this rich 
mining and manufacturing district. It has been said that, 
setting aside the romance of the manufacture of iron under 
the Britons, we may assert that it is reeking but healthy 
labor, and not royalty with an offensive impetigo^ that has 
made Birmingham one of the most remarkable cities in the 
kingdom. Labor and the sons of labor have done it all — 
not suddenly, but by slow degrees. Leland could only say 
of Birmingham that it was inhabited by ^* smiths that use 
to make knives and all sorts of cutting-tools; and many 
lorimors that make bitts, and a great many nailers." Cam- 
den, traveling in the sixteenth century, says, *^Most of the 
inhabitants be smiths." Thus did the great city commence 
a career of prosperity and usefulness, and to-day, with over 
400,000 population, is one of the noted manufacturing cities 
of the world. 

In the district of Worcestershire, included in the imagi- 
nary lines I have drawn, are Stourbridge, where glass was 
first manufactured in 1557; Kidderminster, long celebrated 
for its carpets; Droitwich, for manufacturing fine salt; 
Evesham, for its *' stockings and ribbons; and Tewkesbury, 
for nails, cotton, lace, and mustard," for Shakespeare says, 
**As thick as Tewkesbury mustard." At Worcester, in 
1751, the manufacture of porcelain was first established, for 
which it is celebrated to-day, as well as for the manufacture 
of gloves. This, with a few important places Hke Stockport, 
Northwich, Macclesfield, and Crewe, in Cheshire, comprises 



GLASGOW— ITS TRADITION. 23 

a bird's-eye view of the industrial regions of England. 
From here we proceed to South Wales, and to obtain a. clear 
idea of the work it will be best to include Monmouthshire, 
for that with Glamorganshire properly constitutes the great 
iron and coal district which has Merthyr-Tydvil for its cen- 
ter. A general view of this section and of the south-western 
counties of England, around all of which clusters much of 
interest and importance for an inquiry like this, must be 
left for subsequent letters, as the present one has already 
reached the limit of the space allotted. 



VI. 

GrLASGow— Its Tradition. 

Considering the hap-hazard manner in which tradition 
teUs us Glasgow was ushered into existence, it has a most 
uniform and substantial appearance. Indeed, accident sur- 
rounded the very birth of its founder, but, perhaps, the 
less said about that the better. Certain it is, however, if 
the two wild bulls with their ghastly burden had gone in 
the opposite direction, the saintly Mungo would have fol- 
lowed them. But the strange cortege arrived safely on the 
site now occupied by Glasgow Cathedral, and it must have 
been here, near the stream in the dark ravine, that St. 
Mungo built his hut. At that time in the forest, on the 
site of the eastern or manufacturing quarter of the present 
city, dwelt a class who loved war and had an appetite for 
human flesh. It is said of them that they cared much less 
for roasted sheep than for a roasted shepherd, if he were 
but young. Shepherd or shepherdess was all one to these 
proto-Glasgovians, who were nice epicures, and had their 
favorite sHces in the richest parts of their victims. With . 
such queer neighbors it must have been an accident that 
the young and tender saint was not ''called " to administer 
to their bodily instead of their spiritual appetites. 

However, on reUgious grounds the inhabitants prayed 



24 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



hiTTi to remain, and a bishop was sent for from Ireland to 
consecrate St. Mungo to the holy office to which he had 
been elected. His success was immense. People who were 
disrespectful to him met with fearful deaths; he sowed 
sand in the fields and reaped good and wholesome grain ; 
under his guidance wolf and stag worked together at the 
plow; barns filled with grain were moved from one part 
of the country to the other ; the king kicked him and im- 
mediately the foot thus ingloriously applied was attacked 
by gout. In time, like all great men, he became impopular, 
and then he departed for Wales. But the Glasgow people 
would not let him remain, and the saint was persuaded to 
return, and afterward transferred his cathedral to Glasgow, 
where he continued to perform as extraordinary miracles as 
he had done before. Perhaps to some of these the people of 
Glasgow are indebted for early lessons in the honesty for 
which they are noted. Under the influence of the pious St. 
Mungo, the heads of stolen sheep became petrified and 
fixed on the hands of the thief, and the mills on the banks 
of the Clyde would not grind stolen grain. These same 
mills would not work during church hours on Sundays ; and 
I noticed that this goodly example has likewise been fol- 
lowed to this day, for in Glasgow, unlike the English cities, 
those modern mills of gin and destruction are not opened on 
Sunday, as the law is rigorously enforced. The dislike for 
Sunday trading is clearly shown in some statistics which 
the chief -constable, Captain McCall, gave me this morning. 
During the last decade, annually, at a date unannounced in 
advance to the shopkeepers, the police have visited and 
taken a census of the shops and other places of business 
found open within the City of Glasgow and doing business 
at any time during the day, with the following almost uni- 
form result : 



1872 2,019 

1873 2,048 

1874 2,032 

1875 2,074 

1876 2.109 



1877 2,031 

1878 2,243 

1879 2,218 

1880 2,243 

1881 2,209 



GLASGOW—ITS TRADITION. 25 

Of this number not one public-house is reported to have 
been found open. Of the 2,209 places found open last year, 
859 were fruit and confectionery shops, 277 groceries and 
provisions, 610 milk-shops, 113 green grocers, 179 druggists, 
and only 59 tobacconists. The others were as follows : Bar- 
bers, 11; eating-houses, 29; fruit-stores, 4; news-rooms, 3; 
pie-houses, 14; fleshers (butchers), 9; stationers, 23; coal- 
dealers, 9; bakers, 3; baths, 1; undertakers, 5; cab offices, 
1; total, 2,209. These facts form a strange contrast to the 
wholesale Sabbath-breaking of such cities as Chicago, where 
the open theatres, variety shows, concert-halls, and saloons 
make a saturnalian feast-day of Sunday ; and yet Glasgow, 
like its sister city of the West, has over half a miUion in- 
habitants. 

As the good-natured chief constable of Glasgow slowly 
read off these exhibits of the Sunday raids on a class of 
shops which seem almost necessary to the comfort of the 
poorer classes in the city, my mind reverted to the accounts 
of the even more strict supervision of the streets less than 
a century ago. From 12 o'clock on Saturday night, in 
Glasgow, when the Sabbath began, to 12 o'clock on Sunday 
night, when it finished, all the gates of the city were closed, 
and no one was allowed to pass in or out, save on very 
special necessity. In the daytime, as we read in ^*Eob 
Roy," ^^ searchers" were appointed to take note of all per- 
sons idling on the highway or drinking in taverns, or even 
in their own houses, during kirk-hours. A man who 
shaved himself, or a barber who dressed his wig on the Sab- 
bath risked being led up before the Kirk Session. The sale 
of milk was even forbidden on Sundays. The Glasgow peo- 
ple of those days would almost stone a man for whistling a 
call to his own dog on Sunday, and they cast a scornful 
look on the unrighteous who sought for fresh air in the 
fields, meadows, or country lanes. It is said this lasted 
until 1820. Indeed, as late as 1876 a man was taken up and 
actually convicted and fined for singing ^^ WiUie brewed a 
Peck o' Malt" in the streets on the Lord's day. It is said 



26 BBEAD WINNERS ABROAD, 

he pleaded that he sang the words to one of Moody and 
Sankey^s hymn-tunes, but that did not save him. 

Robert Chambers describes Glasgow, in the latter half of 
the sixteenth century, as a mere *^ little town," with the 
distinction of possessing a university and of carrying on a 
small coasting trade. The townsmen, and indeed towns- 
women also, were a choleric race, given to cry loudly, to 
strike fiercely, and, -moreover, to be as ready with the sword 
or pistol as with fist and tongue. Shots were fired ^* pro- 
miscuously" in a crowded market-place or barroom. Glas- 
cow tailors carried swords on their thighs like gentlemen, 
and angry Glasgow wives had words on their tongues not 
at all Hke those used by ladies. The manufacturing enter- 
prise of the people had dawned even at this early date, and 
Scottish nobles became traders and manufacturers. In 
1688 Viscount Tarbat was chief partner in a little manufac- 
tory in the city, which paid very good dividends. Though 
not free from the many semi-barbarities characteristic of 
the times, the population were ^' canny" and enterprising. 
They were patriotic, too, for when the town-surgeon, in 
speaking of the city itseM as 'Hhe hungrie toune of Glas- 
gow," this ** odious and grit offence" was punished by ap- 
plying the unhappy doctor's pension for the year to *Hhe 
common works of the toune." In 1652 about one third of 
the city was destroyed by fire. After this the Council sent 
**a man of practical experience" to Edinburgh *'to visitie 
the engyne thair for sleekening of fyre." A fire-engine was 
finally bought, and is thus quaintly described in the pro- 
ceedings of the Council: *^ An ingyne for castyng of water 
on land that is in fyre." 



GLASGOW— IJVFANT IJSD U8TMIES. 27 

VII. 

Glasgow— Infant Industries. 

Though the modern Glasgovians are all free traders, their 
ancestors exhibited a tender regard for infant industries, 
and some of the early attempts to encourage manufactures 
are worth mentioning. One of the first subsidies was the 
sum of 2,000 marks (£111 2s. 2|d.) to a couple of enterprising 
citizens *' for the working of their coal-pits in the Gorbals 
for thirteen years." The bakers having '^failed to make 
sufficient bread for the inhabitants," the Council agreed to 
import '' two honest baxters from Edinburgh," who were to 
come to Glasgow on the undertaking that they bake as good 
wheat bread as was baked in the metropolis. The first 
printer of the town having died, for some time Glasgow 
was without one of this craft. In this, as in nearly all other 
things, the Council seems to have been equal to the emer- 
gency. A printer, therefore, was sent for from Edinburgh, 
and as a salary the town agreed to pay him yearly during his 
lifetime the simi of 100 marks (£5 lis. lid.). In addition to 
this, money was allowed him for transporting his apparatus 
from Edinburgh. The growing desire for news is shown by 
an entry in the Council minutes, 5th September, 1657, which 
states : *^The said day appoynts John Flyming to wryt to 
his man guha lynes at London, to send hom for the towne's 
use a weiklie ane diurnall." 

Dr. Doran gives an account of a man who appeared in 
Glasgow in the last year of the seventeenth century, who 
has been rather ungratefully forgotten. His name was 
Wilson ; he was born in Flakefield, and in so far as he is re- 
membered at all it is by the name of his birthplace. He had 
been a weaver before he served as a soldier in the Continen- 
tal wars; and while so serving in Germany his eye was one 
day attracted by a woven blue-and-white chequered hand- 
kerchief. It was a lucky moment for Glasgow when Flake- 



28 BBEAB-WINNERS ABROAD. 

field bought this article. He stowed it away among his 
treasures, and he resolved '^ some day" to weave one Hkeit. 
In the year above named he and the prized handkerchief, 
with Flakefield's father and brother, settled in Glasgow, and 
there the ex-soldier, returning to his old calling, attempted 
to produce a woven blue-and- white checkered handkerchief. 
After some unsuccessful essays, Flakefield succeeded, and 
the blue-and- white checks were soon familiar all over the 
country. Fresh set-up looms could hardly produce these 
articles fast enough, and on them the extensive linen manu- 
facture of Glasgow was founded. 

Probably the best early description of the Glasgow manu- 
facture was that written by the author of *^ Robinson Cru- 
soe," who early in the eighteenth century made '' a tour of 
the whole Island of Great Britain." I have seen one of the 
original copies of the work containing the account of this 
remarkable journey; and while it has been claimed by some 
that Defoe did not visit more than half the places described, 
his descriptions are even to this day good. In this account 
Defoe speaks of *' the fifty sail of ships sent every year to 
Virginia, New England, and other English Colonies in Amer- 
ica," of the excellent manner in which they cured herrings, 
of the '^ handsome sugar-baking houses carried on by skill- 
ful persons," how they were ^' freed from English duties" 
by '^distilhng spirits from molasses." Again Defoe says: 
*'Here is a manufacture of plaiding a stuff cross-striped 
with yellow, red, and other mixtures, for the plaids or veils 
worn by the women of Scotland. Here is a manufacture of 
muslins, which they make so good and fine that great quan- 
tities of them are sent to England." '*The Scots," he said, 
'* have woolen manufactures of their own, such as Stirling 
serges, Musselberg stuffs, Aberdeen stockens, Edinburgh 
shalloons, blankets, etc. The trade with England being 
open, they have now all the Manchester, Sheffield, and Bir- 
mingham wares, and likewise the cloths, kerseys, half thicks, 
diffels, stockens, and coarse manufactures of the north of 



GLASGOW TO-BAY. 29 

England, brought as cheap or cheaper to them by horse- 
packs as they are carried to London, it being a less distance. 
They have hnens of most kinds, especially diapers and table- 
linen, damask, and many other sorts not known in England, 
and cheaper than there." Defoe also speaks of the fact that 
the poor Scotch servants were willing to emigrate to Vir- 
ginia and become thrifty planters, and not, like the English, 
to turn thieves and be sent there to save them from the gal- 
lows. This brief quotation from Defoe gives the origin of 
Glasgow's commercial and manufacturing greatness. It is 
evident from the tone of the English writer that Glasgow 
was then becoming a place of manufacture. Its people 
were inspired by the spirit of commerce and trade, and they 
stood ready to enter upon whatever exhibited any prospect 
of success. It is clear, therefore, that its people were from 
the beginning busy in the endeavor to extend the local in- 
dustries, and to engage in the augmented traffic with for- 
eign countries for which they have since become so fa- 
mous. Such was the Glasgow of the past. 



VIIL 

Glasgow To-day. 



The Glasgow of to-day is a fine, handsome, squarely built 
city, which, if it were not for its gloom and its uniformly 
square brown-stone buildings, would remind one of Chicago. 
There is lots of enterprise, lots of pluck, lots of ' ^ go-aheadi- 
tiveness," lots of manufacturing, and lots of business. In 
some particulars, let me say at once, the two cities are not 
comparable. Glasgow is one of the best-paved cities of its 
size in the world, while Chicago is probably the worst. 
Glasgow is noted for its Sabbath-keeping; Chicago for its 



30 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

disregard of the Lord's day. Glasgow has antiquities. I 
was about to say Chicago has not, but the last time I was 
rummaging over an old book-store in Chicago I came across 
a work entitled '* Chicago Antiquities;" and then it must be 
borne in mind that blocks of stores twelve months old are 
not considered new in Chicago. It is really surprising to note 
how few really poor, miserable buildings there are in Glasgow. 
To be sure, one is reminded of the wooden shanties of Ran- 
dolph Street, on the way out to Elder's ship-yard along the 
Paisley road ; but they are merely small shops. The worst 
part of Glasgow is, strangely enough, in the center, extend- 
ing eastward to the Cathedral, and with the Clyde for the 
southern boundary. In the south-east part of the city, the 
cotton and iron factories are mostly located. Indeed, it is 
the great manufacturing quarter. The people seem very 
comfortable, and, while gin-palaces abound on aU hands, I 
have been through much worse neighborhoods in large cities 
in the United States. The west end is the finest residence 
part of the city, and on the south of the Clyde, two or three 
miles from the center, are the great ship-yards. The Chief 
Constable told me that the most troublesome part of the 
city was the center. Here in a small area 300 of his 1,070 
policemen are stationed. The five other divisions of the 
city share the remainder. The total number of crimes in 
the city for 1881 was 9,452; of that number 3,084 were petty 
thefts, in which property stolen was valued at under five 
shillings. The Chief Constable informs me that, taking 
twenty-three years of the criminal history of Glasgow, 
crime in the city reached a maximum in 1867, and receded 
to a minimum in 1871, the number of cases being 10,899 and 
7,521 respectively. Only one man was charged with mur- 
der during the year, and his sentence was commuted. 
What would the State Attorney of Chicago think of this, as 
the number in that city reaches twenty in some years ? 

The close proximity of Glasgow to the iron-fields has 
made the iron and steel industry one of the staple industries 



GLASGOW TO-DAY. 31 

of the city. The Glasgow exchange is the scene of the sale 
of this manufacture. For twenty years the average pro- 
duction has been over 1,000,000 tons annually, and in 1881 it 
reached 1,176,000 tons. It will be about 40,000 tons less this 
year. But this industry as well as the ship-building and 
textile industries will each be important enough for a spe- 
cial letter after I have visited all the manufacturing towns 
within the rectangle described in the preceding letter. 

The Glasgow Herald on Tuesday published verbatim such 
of the schedules of the Tariff Commission report as affected 
the Glasgow interests. Of course, it included chemicals 
metals, sugar, cotton, flax, liquors, woolens, and two items 
in the sundry schedule. Sugar-refining is an important in- 
dustry here and at Greenock. Almost all varieties of tex- 
tile manufacture are now carried on. The estimated value 
of the ships and shipping machinery may be said to be 
$40,000,000. The total number of men employed in the 
thirty-seven yards on the Clyde and its tributaries is esti- 
mated at 50,000. One yard which I visited yesterday em- 
ploys 5,000 hands. From these yards in 1881 were launched 
the ^^Servia" (7,392 tons), the ^^ Alaska" (6,932 tons), the 
.•'Austral" (5,600 tons), the '^Missouri" (5,146 tons), the ^'Bel- 
gravia" (5,075 tons), the '^Eome" (5,013 tons), and the '' Car- 
thage" (5,013 tons) twelve iron ships of from 4,000 to 4,911 
tons, thirteen of from 3,000 to 3,972 tons, and thirty of from 
2,000 to 2,989 tons. The year which is drawing to a close 
(1882) has been one of unusual activity on the Clyde. The 
builders have surpassed all their previous efforts. From 
35,709 tons in 1859 they have increased to 301,934 tons for 
1882. This exceeds 1881 by nearly 51,000 tons, while it is 
nearly 130,000 tons in excess of 1874, which was for some 
time considered the grestest year in the history of Clyde ship- 
building. It is said that wages in the ship-building indus- 
tries were never so high as now. This, as I shall show in 
subsequent letters, does not hold true in other industries. 
From the most trustworthy sources I have obtained the f ol- 



32 



BBEAD-WINNEBS ABROAD. 



lowing table, showing the weekly wages paid in 1883 in 
Glasgow for the trades indicated: 



Blacksmiths and eng'rs $7.50 

General smiths 7.50 

Bootmakers 7.25 

Bricklayers 7.50 

Cabinet makers 7.40 

Calenders 7.00 

Curriers 6.50 

Coopers 6.00 

Gilders 7.50 

Carpenters 7.50 

Laborers 4.50 to 5.00 

Printers 7.50 



Do., newspaper offices, 

$7.00 to 8.00 

Masons 7.50 

Moulders 7.50 

Painters 7.50 

Plasterers 7.50 

Plumbers 7.50 

Porters 5.00 

Sawyers (by piece) 6.50 

Slaters 7.50 

Tailors 7.25 

Turners and fitters 7.50 



The cost of living in Glasgow will be seen by a glance at 
the following table, which may be trusted as accurate: 



Oatmeal, per stone (14 lbs.) 50 cts. 
Potatoes, per stone (14 lbs.)12 ** 
Beef, first quality, per lb. .25 *' 
Beef, second quality, per lb. 18 ** 
Beef, third quality, per lb. 14 ** 

Bacon, per lb 18 *' 

Pork, per lb 18 '* 

Bread, 1st quality, per 4 lb. 17 ** 
Bread, 2d quality, per 4 lb. 15 ** 
Sweet milk, per half gallon. 16 * * 



Buttermilk, per Scotch pint 2 cts. 

Cheese, per lb 16 *' 

Fresh butter, per lb 40 '* 

Salt butter, per lb 26 ** 

Black tea, per lb 24 ** 

Brown sugar, per lb 5 '* 

Brown soap, per lb 5 *' 

Black soap, per lb 6 *' 

Coal, per cwt 14 to 16 ** 



Eent for single rooms I found varied from %22^ to $25 
per annum; two rooms from $37i to $40 and $471; three 
rooms, $60 to $75 per annum. It will be impossible to draw 
any conclusions from these figures until I have obtained 
similar statements from all the other cities. It wiU be ob- 
served that iron and steel workers, ship-builders and the 
textile trades are not included. An attempt will be made 
to present facts more in detail in the letters especially 
devoted to these branches. Upon the whole, I was agree- 
ably surprised with Glasgow, both in its appearance and 
with the condition of its people. A great deal of money is 
spent in drink, and there are, with all the strict police sur- 
veillance, more public-houses than are necessary — in aU 
about 1,800. Forty years ago it was said of Glasgow that 



PAISLEY— THE bWiTGHED WEAVER. 33 

every tenth house was a spirit shop, and that the per capita 
proportion of whisky consumed was twice as much as in 
any similar population. To-day the proportion is one pub- 
he-house to every 285 of the population. It is hardly prob- 
able, taking it all in all, that I shall find in the trip mapped 
out a more flourishing and prosperous city. 



IX. 

Paisley— The Bewitched Weaver. 

The elements are beautifully mixed in this section of Scot- 
land. By the elements I do not aUude to the weather, nor 
to the characteristics of the people, but to the elements that 
go to make up the country and its surroundings. It is not 
exactly a farming country, for within a radius of ten miles 
of Glasgow is Coatbridge, the center of a great iron region, 
and this city, with nearly 60,000 population, chiefly engaged 
in textile manufacturing ; but to reach either of these points 
from Glasgow you pass through widespread, fertile plains, 
or a charming farming country agreeably diversified by 
gentle risings, by woods, by water, by rocky ravines, and, 
in short, by aU the constituents of the soft, the beautiful and 
the grand. Here, 

'Midst nature's wildest grandeur, 
By rocky dens and woody glens, 

are planted, especially in the Coatbridge district, unpoet- 
ical blast-furnaces, the lurid flames from which at night add 
to the wildness of the scene. So rich is the land that the 
very slag around the pit's mouth looks green, and the dingi- 
ness ends with the works and the verdure of the fields 
begins. I was attracted in one instance by a neat farm- 
house, with a dozen stacks of grain in the barnyard, and 
on the other side, a few rods from the garden, a fair-sized 
3 



34 BBEAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

blast-furnace. This, indeed, was bringing manufacture 
close along the lines of agriculture, as the political econo- 
mists say. On a misty morning the tall chimneys of the 
iron-mining villages in the Coatbridge district seem to peer 
up from the fields, and, enveloped in their own smoke, they 
look more like phantoms than the dreary realities with such 
black landscapes as one sees in the North of England re- 
gions or in the Black Country. And the same is true of the 
cities. You plunge out of the country, as it were, into the 
center of Glasgow. You leave Elder's great shipping-yard, 
and to the west is the country ; I might almost say to the 
south also. 

At Paisley you are more confused than ever. At one end 
of the town is Clark's enormous thread factory, capable of 
employing over 4,000 operatives. On the one side it seems 
to be in the midst of a busy city; turn around and you see 
the rolling hills and pleasant meadows of a Scotch landscape. 
Walk across the town for about two miles and you enter 
Coat's mill ; leave it on the south side and you step into the 
green fields. Look at this region for a moment from an his- 
torical point of view, and the strange mixture of the ancient 
and the modern presents itself — the traditions of the past 
and the possibilities of the future; in short, the cloisters and 
the busy mart seem so jumbled together that even a practi- 
cal chronicler hesitates whether to begin with the social 
condition of the mill operatives, or with a few meditations 
on Paisley Abbey. 

Perhaps rather more of truth clusters around the early 
history of Paisley than that of Glasgow. At any rate, all 
historians seem to agree that the beginning of its manufact- 
uring greatness may be traced to a yoimg person who was 
certainly guilty of a terrible crime. The story goes that 
in 1697 a daughter of the Laird of Bargarren, named Christi- 
ana Shaw, preferred a charge of bewitching her against a 
servant-girl with whom she had quarreled, and nineteen 
alleged confederates, seven of whom were condemned and 
six of the number actually burned on Gallow-green, Pais- 



PAISLEY— THE BEWITCHED WEAYEB. 35 

ley. The inciter to this act of superstitious cruelty is said 
to have subsequently acquired great skill in spinning fine 
yarn. Her first productions were sold at Bath to the lace- 
makers. Stimulated by this, Mistress Shaw extended her 
transactions to Holland. The demand for this thread soon 
became great and the most extensive manufactures that 
arose in Scotland at that period acknowledged "the be- 
witched lady" a,s their originator. It has been truly said 
that for variety of textile manufactures and for the perse- 
vering ingenuity with which her traders followed and even 
controlled the caprices of fashion, Paisley deserves the very 
highest credit. While weaving and its allied occupations 
have come from many causes to occupy merely a secondary 
position in Glasgow, the town of Paisley is yet, as it has 
been now for nearly two centuries, a principal center of one 
or other of the numerous leading forms of textile manufact- 
ure. Fashions have changed, fabrics of numberless kinds 
have come into use and died out, but Paisley has always 
been found equal to the occasion ; at one time by the very 
excellence and beauty of her fabrics compelling fashion to 
accept the products of her looms, and again when the fickle 
dame must have a change, the Paisley weavers bowed to 
the necessity and adapted their looms to the varying re- 
quirements of different periods. Much of this must be due 
to the intelhgence and adaptability of the operatives, as il- 
lustration of which a story is told of a man who had a great 
rope-walk near Glasgow, Having quarreled with his 
workmen, they all left. A few weeks later he was aston- 
ished to find them all sitting on fine lawn-looms at Paisley. 
Before the invention of machinery spinning and weaving 
were carried on in nearly all the little farm-houses of this 
beautiful part of Scotland. In the winter evenings the 
females with their rocks and spindles, or spinning-wheels, 
assembled in each other's houses, and "song, story, and joke 
enlivened the circle, while they spun their stint of tow." 

The inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton 
gave, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the 



36 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

death-blow to the occupation of Scottish spinsters, who 
were inevitably supplanted by the factory operatives of the 
present day. About the end of the last century \veavers 
were the best paid and most highly respectable class in the 
West of Scotland. From the best paid they gradually de- 
clined, through a variety of causes, to the worst, and the 
unfortunate weavers fell into an abject and miserable condi- 
tion, indescribably sad, and bitter almost beyond endurance 
to those who could recall the days of their prosperity. 
Moral, social, and physical degradation ensued, until the 
condition of the weavers became a question for Parlia- 
mentary inquiry. The result of this inquiry brought out 
the following extraordinary decline in earnings : 

1806 30 cts. per ell— $7.80 per week. 

1810 25 '' per ell— 6.40 per week. 

1815 24 '* per ell— 6.18 per week. 

1820 10 " per ell—- 2.40 per week. 

1825 10 '' per ell— 2.40 per week. 

1830 .... 6 '' per ell— 1.22 per week. 

1835 7 '• per ell— 1.58 per week. 

1838 7 ' per ell— 1.58 per week. 

To relieve the distress of the weavers emigration was re- 
sorted to, and at the present day, says Paton, only a rem- 
nant of the great wreck continues to ply the ancient calling 
in the Scotland villages of the West, where in earlier days 
the sound of the shuttle was heard all day long in almost 
every cottage. From an industry prosecuted in almost 
every farm ' ' toon" and cottage throughout the country, the 
weaving trade gathers its materials from all parts of the 
globe, and the work of spinning is carried on in immense 
factories like those at Paisley and Glasgow, and indeed in 
many other thrifty Scotch towns. Perhaps this Httle dip 
into history explains why the fields begin at the very walls 
of these factories. 



PAISLET^LIKE A FAIllT STORY. 37 



Paisley— Like a Fairy Story. 

The history of textile manufacture in this quaint old 
city is almost like a fairy story. To study it thoroughly by 
the aid of the public records in its fine library, and the 
numerous samples of its manufacture and models of ma- 
chinery in the museum, would be to master the art of 
weaving from the earliest time to the latest improvements. 
At present the most outstanding and peculiar feature of 
Paisley manufacture is that of thread. From here, I am 
told, is probably sent out a greater length and weight of 
sewing thread than from all the other factories of Great 
Britain combined. Worsted shawls and shirtings are a 
feature of the Paisley trade of great importance. Mousse- 
line de laine, a thin worsted fabric which was printed with 
steam colors, was for a long period an important branch of 
manufacture here, which the vicissitudes of fashion have 
now extinguished. The weaving of imitation Cashmere 
shawls was first attempted at Paisley in 1802. From that 
time onward shawl-making gradually superseded the manu- 
facture of muslin. In brief, it might be said that, begin- 
ning with coarse linen checks, the first fabrics produced by 
the Paisley looms, to these succeeded others of a lighter 
kind, such as lawns, both figured and plain. Silk gauze 
then took the lead, about the year 1760, and Spitalfields 
soon yielded to its more successful competitor; for such was 
the celebrity of Paisley gauze that warehouses were en- 
gaged for its sale in London, Dublin, and Paris. In 1784 no 
less than 26,000 persons were employed at Paris in the fab- 
rication of this article, together with sewing-thread, lawn, 
and linen. But the demand for the popular gauze rapidly 
decreased. Muslin, cambric, and cotton thread were the 
next production of Paisley industry and skill ; to these sue- 



38 BREAD-WIN NEBS ABROAD, 

ceeded silk and cotton shawls, scarfs, and plaids, composed 
of silk and merino wool. These still continue to exhibit the 
ingenuity and taste of the Paisley weavers, and in the man- 
ufacture of them they have arrived at great perfection. In 
Paisley and its neighborhood are numerous thread and cot- 
ton spinning-mills, bleaching and printing works, dye- 
houses, power loom factories, iron and brass foundries, en- 
gineers' and wheelwrights' shops, timher yards, a brewery, 
distilleries, soap, starch, and corn-flour manufactories, and 
a very extensive tannery. 

The wages of the weavers and the employment afforded 
to them still fluctuate in the wildest manner. When any 
particular fabric or pattern has the good fortune to "take," 
and a run on it is established, wages go up. But after a 
rush a time of absolute idleness, or only flickering work at 
low rates, may be the rule for weeks together. The two 
great thread mills are running " slack time" just now, and 
not employing their full number of operatives. Clark's 
mill has now about 3,000 on the pay-rolls, 2,500 of vhich 
number are women and girls. Mr. Coates informed me his 
mills were employing about 1700. I visited both these mills 
and had an agreeable chat with the heads of the two firms. 

The operatives of Clark's mill are scattered all over what 
is called the new town, sometimes occupying whole streets, 
and again interspersed with the dwelUngs of small shop- 
keepers and mechanics. Many of them live in large, square, 
substantial but dingy-looking storehouses, divided on the 
flat principle, though, excepting a common entrance, lack- 
ing most of the convenciences that distinguish the system 
in France and America. Three or four rooms are generally 
included in one flat, the rent varying from £10 for the 
ground-floor, and decreasing with the successive floors 
above, until it reaches the minimum of £6. In addition to 
rent, of course, come taxes, including poor rates, etc., 
which in England amount to about one-fifth of the rent, but 
which in Scotland are hardly so great. Of the few rooms 
one is generally dignified into a parlor, through the medium 



PAISLEY- LIKE A FAIRY STORY. 39 

of a gay carpet, a few plainly upholstered chairs, a painful 
sofa, plenty of netted antimacassars, some cheery chromos 
on the wall, and on the square center- table a family Bible, 
a copy of Burns, two or three volumes of " Waverley," and 
sometimes a well-worn album. Much of the comfort of 
even such a home as I have described comes from the joint 
earnings of the family, with the exception of the younger 
children. Of lodging houses for girls, such as those at Low- 
ell, there are none, those who come from the country or 
Glagow finding homes and a certain degree of protection 
with some of the mill hands ; as a rule only one or. two are 
received in a family. 

I visited a dozen or so of the flats just spoken of, and, 
though with no apparent excuse for personal questions, was 
received with simple cordiality on the self-introduction of 
'* A visitor from America, curious to see Scotch people in 
their own homes." My queries were answered readily and 
with an intelligence hardly expected. At one place I found 
a little old Scotchwoman, with pink cheeks and a white cap, 
who managed to take care of an invalid daughter and three 
others, all young girls, who worked in Clark's mill. Struck 
with the surroundings, which were unusually neat and at- 
tractive, I asked the daughter, Janet, whether she con- 
sidered her home as above that of the average mill hand in 
comfort. 

''It may be better than some, but it shouldna, for in 
Paisley poverty means drink, and among my ain folk there 
is na' drinking; we have not a mon in the house." 

''How much do your sisters earn?" I asked. 

"Just now is slack time, sir; they only work from six till 
two, making a pound a fortnight, which is now the average 
wages of the mill hands here. When they work full time 
they make more." 

"What sort of character does the mill girl generally bear?" 

"I have been employed in one mill over twenty years, 
and found them to be generally good. If a body is seen to 
be ' light,' she is sent awa." 



40 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

*'How is it, then, that so many single women with chil- 
dren are retained in the mills?" 

^^Ay, sir, they have been very respectable, and when 
one has a misfortune of that kind we all feel sorry, and try 
and help her get ready for the poor bairnie." 

Many of the Paisley operatives do not earn over eight shil- 
lings a week ($1. 92) in slack times, and hence numerous homes 
where the rooms occupied are poor and dirty and almost 
devoid of furniture. But in nearly every instance of this 
kind the reason may be traced to drink. Both the sober 
and thrifty operatives and the mill owners agree that most 
of the misery and want in fairly prosperous times is caused 
by the misuse of liquor. I observed the stream of girls 
leaving both the great thread mills. Most of them were 
warmly clad, but perhaps a score tramped through the cold 
slush without shoes. Not any of them had bonnets. They 
were, upon the whole, a superior class of girls to those I 
have seen coming out of the mills in Manchester ; but they 
would not compare with the neatly dressed girls, with 
shapely American shoes, neat hats, clean collars or ruching 
round the neck, with umbrellas in rainy weather and sun- 
shades in the summer, that one can see at noon coming out 
of the Merrimac Mills at Lowell, or with the 3, 500 girls em- 
ployed in Conant's thread mills at Pawtucket — merry, 
tidy, and rosy-cheeked, from their rides to and fro to their 
country homes— in comfortable wagonettes drawn by stout 
horses. 



XI. 

The Clyde.— Classic River of the Ship-builder's Art. 

The Clyde has Jong had a sort of classic interest in con- 
nection with the two cognate arts of ship-building and ma- 
rine engineering, and no river in the world has done more 
to bring them to their present high state of perfection. Iron 



THE CLYDE, 41 

shipbuilding at present thrives most on the Clyde (Glas- 
gow), the Tyne (Newcastle), the Mersey (Birkenhead), and 
the Wear (Sunderland), while it also prevails to a great ex- 
tent at Hull, Bristol, Chester, Southampton, and other ports 
in Great Britain. It is the ship-building of the Clyde, how- 
ever, that will be made the special topic of this letter. As 
early as 1835 progress had been made in ship-building on the 
Clyde, and during the next five years the trade began a vig- 
orous infancy. Previous to the time of Henry Bell, ship- 
building was not unknown on the Clyde ; but his valuable 
gift to the world in the way of demonstration of steam 
navigation was the means of instituting ship-building and 
marine engineering as industries which in a few years came 
to be regarded as especially belonging to Glasgow and the 
Clyde. The pioneer steamers of the Cunard Line, founded in 
1840, were built at Port Glasgow and Greenock. Eobert 
Napier was one of the first builders, and during the Crimean 
War he built his first iron-clad, the ^ ^ Erebus. " In 1852 John 
Elder, now probably the largest ship-builder in the world, 
who had been an apprentice with Robert Napier, joined with 
Charles Randolph and laid the foundation of a business which 
this year turned out nearly 32,000 tons of iron vessels and 
employs more than 5,000 men. 

Many circumstances have contributed to make Glasgow 
and the Clyde famous for the position which they have at- 
tained in the application of iron ship-building. Skill in 
mechanical construction has become almost an inherited 
faculty, as evidence of which one can refer at least to two 
if not to three generations of Napiers, Dennys, Duncans, 
Elders, Neilsons, etc., in the industries in question. John 
Mayer, in his sketch of the engineering and ship-building 
industries of Glasgow and the Clyde, divides the history 
into six periods. Of course the first period began with the 
^^ Comet," which commenced to ply in 1812 between Glasgow 
and Helensburgh, and was designed by Bell, and her rate of 
motion about five miles an hour. The second period was 
inaugurated by David Napier, and was the beginning of the 



42 BREAD -WINFEBS ABROAD. 

practical adaptation of the steam- vessel for deep-sea traflSc. 
The third period, 1822-30, brought many changes, mostly 
in the engines, and brought up the speed to ten miles an 
hour. Most of the vessels built in the fourth period, 1830- 
40, did some remarkable work, especially in regard to the 
regularity and speed with which they performed their voy- 
ages. The next period produced the famous Cunarder 
"Britannia," which made the first voyage from Liverpool 
to Boston in fourteen days eight hours, and opened a new 
era of commerce. The sixth and present period is that of 
John Elder and the compound marine engine, the period of 
the '^Arizona," the ''Alaska," and the "Oregon." 

" What will be the next era?" 

Perhaps in turn the highest apprentice of Elder's shops, 
who the other day remarked to me with pride, as we looked 
at a magnificent engine almost ready for the steamer, 
"That's the Governor's own engine," may yet so economize 
power that the Atlantic will be crossed in five instead of 
seven days. Or perhaps the next step will be twin screws 
instead of the single screw, while, instead of sixteen, eigh- 
teen or twenty knots an hour will be the normal speed. 

The following is a comparative statement of the gross ton- 
age built on the Clyde during the last five years : 1878, 
215,640; 1879, 173,820; 1880, 242,774; 1881, 540,823; 1882, 
395,149; total, 1,368,206. 

Among the productions of the last year was the "Alaska," 
the greyhound of the sea, but the Elders are not contented 
to rest on their laurels, and the " Oregon," which is now on 
the stocks, is expected to outstrip even the " Alaska." Last 
Tuesday I was at Clydebank and witnessed the launching of 
the ' ' Aurania, " the new steel Cunarder. She could carry suf- 
ficient coal to enable her to go around the world at fifteen 
knots an hour without calling at a port to replenish. The 
engines are capable of developing 10,000 horse-power. Mr. 
Thompson, in a speech at the launching, said that he be- 
lieved the ships of the future would have no masts, the twin 
machinery so largely increasing the safety. The attainment 



THE CLYDE. 43 

of twenty knots, he also said, would, in his opinion, be the 
limit of speed reached in vessels of anything like reasonable 
dimensions. This, in brief, gives the history of ship-building 
on the Clyde from the days of the "Comet," forty feet long, 
with a ten-foot beam on engines of three-horse power, to the 
forthcoming " Oregou," 580 feet long, 54 feet broad, and en- 
gines equal to 13,000 horse-power. 

The metropolis of this district, as we have already seen, 
is Glasgow. The industrial classes have not improved here 
greatly under free trade. According to that eminent free- 
trade authority, John Bright, in the city of Glasgow alone 
41,000 families out of every 100,000 families live in homes 
having only one room, and from my own observation I 
should judge that Mr. Bright underestimates rather than 
overestimates the fact; and, further, he says that 78 per 
cent, or nearly four-fifths, dwell in homes of one or two 
rooms, and that in Scotland nearly one-third of the people 
dwell in homes of only one room, and that more than two- 
thirds, or 70 per cent, of the people of Scotland dwell in 
homes with no more than two rooms. After reading these 
words from the patron saint of free trade, there will be few 
persons inclined to doubt the impartial statements in the 
Scottish series of letters on Dundee. 

But what are the wages in the shipping industry in Scot- 
land, and what are they here? asks the American workman. 
The Delaware figures are vouched for by Cramp & Sons, 
ship-builders ; those for the Clyde are taken from the report 
of the chief of the Statistical Department of the Board of 
Trade, London, good free-trade authority. Here they are — 
the Clyde and the Delaware side by side: 



44 



BEE AD -WINNERS ABBOAD. 



Occupations and Allied Branches 
OP Labor. 



Foremen (men) 

Planters (men) 

Fitters (men) 

Fitters' slippers 

Drillers 

Hole-cutters 

Riveters , 

Angle-iron smiths. . . . 

Ship-smiths 

Ship-smiths' boys. . . 
Ship-smiths' strikers. 

Forgemen 

Holders-np 

Helpers (boys) 

Calkers and chippers, 

Ship-carpenters 

Joiners 

Joiners' laborers 

Sawyers 

Riggers 

Riggers' laborers 

Painters 

Engineers 

Laborers 

Heelers (boys) 



Per Week 
in Glasgow. 



$10 00 



50 
50 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
5 00 
2 50 



50 
50 
25 
50 
50 
75 
25 
25 
25 
80 
25 
00 
75 
10 



2 00 



Per Week in 
Philadelphia. 



|30 00 
18 00 
15 00 

9 00 
10 50 

9 00 
12 00 

14 00 
18 00 

4 00 
9 00 
9 00 
9 00 
4 00 
12 00 
18 00 

15 00 
6 25 

11*66 

9 50 

15 00 

12 00 

6 75 

4 00 



XII. 



Dumbarton— Picturesque and Busy. 

Yesterday Mr. James Henderson, Factory Inspector for 
Scotland and Northern England, and a gentleman who has 
given considerable study to all economic questions, invited 
me to visit and inspect the ship - building yards of the 
Dennys, who have probably built 50,000 tons of steam ship- 
ping during the last twenty years for the British India 
Steam Navigation Company, and who turn out some of the 



DUMBARTON— PICTURESQUE AND BUSY. 46 

handsomest-fitted ships in the world. They have also built 
many vessels for the Austrian Lloyds Steam Navigation 
Company. The yard is located at Dumbarton, under the 
shadow of the picturesque Dumbarton rock, and the tow^er 
on the top of which the Scottish hero Wallace was once 
confined. The town, which now contains nearly 15,000 in- 
habitants, has been much indebted to the energetic enter- 
prise of the Denny family, who employ many men. It is 
about half an hour's ride by the railway from Glasgow, and 
on the road Mr. Henderson pointed out to me the town 
which the Singer Sewing-machine Company are building in 
the suburbs of Glasgow, and their new shops capable of em- 
ploying more than 5,000 hands. It is said that the company 
propose to furnish the foreign demand for their sewing- 
machines from this shop, as labor is so much cheaper in 
England than in the United States. A little further along, 
the genial Inspector of Her Majesty's workshops, pointed 
out one of the largest chemical works in England — the 
North British. 

'^In that works the other day," he dryly remarked, ^'a 
man fell into a vat of red-hot caustic potash." 

^* Poor fellow ! " I replied ; " killed instantly, I suppose? " 

*' Nothing but the iron heels of his boots ever found," re- 
sponded the inspector. 

" There," said my companion, ^4s Lord Blentyre's estate ; " 
and he pointed to a mansion on the opposite side of the 
Clyde. A stingy lord, Blentyre; he sold the railroad com- 
pany the land on the bank of the Clyde opposite his resi- 
dence, and after the road was built sued the company for 
£10,000 for spoiling the view from his mansion. So great 
was his influence in the House of Lords that the company 
was obliged to pay it. Further along we passed Bell's mon- 
ument ; and then amid the mist towered up the black rock 
on the summit of which stands the celebrated Castle of 
Dumbarton, the scene of many an historical struggle between 
the English and Scottish chiefs. We found every one, from 
the young Mr. Denny to the apprentices, busy. A fine 



46 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

steamer had just been launched, and a gang of men, of at 
least a score of different trades, were at work on the interior. 
Another steamer not so far advanced lay alongside of her. 
In the yard were steamers in various stages of advance- 
ment; some with the keel just laid, others looking like huge 
black skeletons, others partly plated, and some with the 
first coat of paint, almost ready for launching. The black- 
smith shops, the machine shop, the wood shop, the uphol- 
sterer's shop, and the tracing and model rooms seemed like 
busy side-shows to the main yard, in which, to the inex- 
perienced eyes, men seemed performing the most marvel- 
ous tricks with immense sheets of steel and iron, and 
making astonishingly dextrous movements with hammers 
and rivets. 

Of course the first question put to me was, *' When will 
the cobwebs of protection be swept from the minds of you 
Americans? " 

' ' When the ingenuity of our people enables us to compete 
with the world without making the American laborer and 
artisan less of a man than he is," I responded. 

I made very careful inquiry in regard to the wages paid, 
and the social condition of the workingmen of Dumbarton, 
and was told that some riveters earned £3 a week, and 
platers who had charge of gangs from £3 to £4 a week. 
The average earnings of a blacksmith were £2 5s., of a 
joiner, £1 15s., and of laborers from 15s. to 18s. a week. The 
latter, I found, were mostly Irish, and they lived in miser- 
able dens — the single men in lodgings and the married 
whole families in one room. Their midday meal consisted 
chiefly of bread and tea. 

I was well aware, as I shall demonstrate presently, that 
the " average earnings " were greatly exaggerated, and this 
shows the utter folly of trusting in off-hand statements of 
wages made by employers in England, which invariably are 
founded on maximum payments. In the face of these ran- 
dom assertions about wages, I have obtained the actual fig- 
ures from the analysis of the fortnightly pay-roll of one of 



DUMBARTON— PICTURESQUE AND BUST. 47 

the most celebrated of the Clyde ship-yards. I withhold the 
name for apparent reasons, but if any one doubts the accu- 
racy of the exhibit I am prepared to substantiate the facts. 
It shows at once the ignorance of those raving demagogues 
who grotesquely announce that wages are as high in Eng- 
land as in the United States. The particular pay-roll taken 
was for the last two weeks of November, this year. The 
highest prices were being paid for labor, and, to use the lan- 
guage of a ship-builder, *' Enghsh and Scottish workmen al- 
ways work like demons the few weeks preceding holidays." 
Added to this, the yard was overflowing with work. Eighty 
'^piece-workers" had all they could do, while ' Himers " 
were on full time and pay. The exact number on the pay- 
roll, including foremen and apprentices, was 1,614; the ex- 
act amount of the fortnight's pay-roll was £3,988. Of this 
nmnber I found that 27 per cent, or a little over one-quar- 
ter, were "timers," and 73 per cent, or nearly three-quar- 
ters, were "piece-workers." For convenience' sake I will 
give the odd fourteen men about a pound apiece and caU 
the number of men 1, ^0, and the amount of the fortnight's 
pay-roll £4,000. Here is the result: 

4, 000-Hl, 600=21. 

Average fortnightly earnings of each man, £2 10s., or 
$12.50. 

Average weekly earnings of each man, £1 5s., or $6.25. 

The amount of wages paid is not what a man can earn, 
nor what a few men do earn, but what whole classes of op- 
eratives or artisans are actually paid by their employers. 
It must be borne in mind that the pay-roll I have taken, 
from the season of the year and the pressure of business, is 
a very favorable one for the workman, as estimating (an 
outside estimate) that the men received twenty-five similar 
amounts during the year, which is hardly probable, we have 
for the average annual earnings of aU employed in one of 
the great shipyards of Scotland (including foremen, platers 
and riveters, and other experienced men) M2 10s., or $312.50. 
Only 10 per cent of the total amount of the £4,000 paid out 



48 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

the books show, was for unskilled labor. How many per- 
sons received the 10 per cent, or £400? 

Number of unskilled laborers, piece-workers 190 

Number of unskilled laborers, timers 248 

Total 438 

Thus while the laboring man numerically represented 
considerably over twenty-five per cent of the total number 
on the pay-roll, he only receives ten per cent of the pay, or 
a trifle over 18s. per fortnight, or actually less than $2.50 
per week. If the unskilled laborers are deducted from the 
skilled, there remains about £3,600 to be distributed among 
1,176, making the average weekly pay of the skilled work- 
man about £1 10s. per week. On this sum a man can live 
in England decently, but on 10s. he simply drags out an ex- 
istence of constant want and misery, and ends by becoming 
one of the million pauper population of the empire. 

But how much does the ship-builder earn in the United 
States? Take the figures of the census, which, I believe, in- 
cludes all kinds of ship-building, and does not give iron ship- 
building (by far the highest wages being paid in that branch) 
separately. For 1880, I find that $12,800,000 was paid out in 
wages to21, 330 hands employed, or about $600 per annum. 
Could we take a similar bird's-eye view of all classes of ship- 
building in Great Britain, and not merely of one of the most 
highly paid branches of it, the result would demonstrate be- 
yond a doubt that the wages paid in this industry at home 
exceed those of Great Britain by over 100 per cent. It is 
very rarely that one can obtain such trustworthy data as 
those above given direct from the counting-room, and it cer- 
tainly throws considerable light on one reason why England 
can build ships so cheaply, to say nothing about running 
them after they are built. 

I asked one of the Mr. Dennys if most of the English ships 
were manned with British sailors. He smiled at my igno- 
rance and said : 



DUMBARTON— PICTURESQUE AND BUSY. 49 

*' Thirty-five per cent of our sailors are foreigners — East 
Indians. Why, they can be had for 30 shilhngs a month 
and a httle rice ; and then they don't drink. Enghshmen 
won't work for less than £3 10s. and £4 a month, and they 
require better food." 

I told him Americans would want about $2 a day for such 
work. 

From what I have heard during my stay on the Clyde, I 
am inclined to think that ship-building and ship-owning are 
being overdone, just as railroading has been in the United 
States. Small capitalists have been induced to go into it, 
and I have before me four most enticing circulars, each 
urging the persons to whom they are addressed to buy 
shares in one of ' ' the most economically built ships ever 
turned out of a ship-yard." I showed some of these circu- 
lars to a first-class builder on the Clyde, and he said he 
could not conceive how the boats were built for the money, 
and that this sort of investment was hazardous in the ex- 
treme. Steamship-owning here has been very profitable. 
Managing owners, taking advantage of this and of the law 
that allows a vessel to be owned by a large number of 
owners of the sixty-four parts into which its ownership is 
legally divisible, have induced capitalists to buy single shares 
in amounts ranging from £250 to four times that sum. The 
managing owner, in all of the circulars I have seen, re- 
ceives a considerable renumeration (often, in addition, a per- 
centage of the gross profits) for the management of the 
vessel ; the accounts furnished to his co-owners are of the 
most skeleton character, and it is the exception to find any 
reserve laid aside for purposes of renewals or heavy repairs. 
Under these circumstances, I am informed, new vessels 
yield necessarily large dividends; but those who know the 
depreciation in the earning power of steamers, the need for 
renewals in less than a dozen years, and the heaviness of 
insurance in such cases, look with anxiety to the future. 
4 



50 BREAD ^WINI^EBS ABMOAD, 

XIII. 

The Jolly Jailers of Dundee. 

It is disheartening, after all these years, and after it has 
been celebrated in verse, to find out from modern phi- 
lologists that ^'Bonnie Dundee" means neither a very 
beautiful nor very pleasant place. The epithet '^bonnie," 
they now say, neither applies to beauty of aspect nor 
amenity of situation, but is simply the French adjective 
bonne, good, and, in concurrence with the extensive practice 
of olden times, was merely a complimentary expression 
applied to the town as representing the inhabitants. The 
town of Dundee itself was ushered into existence by an acci- 
dent, and tradition has it that the Latin significance of the 
name is the "hill of God," so named by the brother of the 
Scottish King, who landed there after a dreadful storm on 
his return from the holy wars. This took place in 1174, and 
so pleased was the King at meeting his brother that he at 
once signalized the event by making Dundee a burgh. 
From time immemorial Perth and Dundee have been jeal- 
ous of one another, but of late years Dundee has altogether 
outstripped her sister city of the Tay. In the sixteenth cen- 
tury the representatives of these two cities actually fought 
for the second place in a royal procession, and so delightful 
a circumstance as a street fight was not so rare in those good 
old times as to prevent the populace from hilariously joining 
therein. It is said that Dundee got worsted and that the 
citizens raged considerably at this loss of dignity. But 
before this the bitterest animosity had existed through a 
dispute as to the limits of their respective ports on the Tay, 
the inhabitants of Perth maintnining that their port included 
the whole river, and that no ship ought to break bulk until 
it reached the bridge of Perth. In this quarrel, which was 
carried on at times with bloodshed, Dundee triumphed. 
But while Perth and Dundee might have fought over which 



THE JOLLY JAILORS OF DUNDEE. 51 

city contributed proportionately the greatest number of 
criminals, there was no doubt that of the prison that held 
them Dundee was rightly proud, and Perth and all Scotland 
besides envious. Says Dr. Doran: "It was the boast of 
honest men and the despair of felons that it was the strong- 
est prison in all Scotland. There was no getting out of it 
by ' breaking. ' A toad might as easily break from the cen- 
ter of the stone in which it has been immured for centuries." 
The jailers had a jolly time. They locked up their prisoners 
at night and repaired to their lodging in town, returning in 
the morning in time to prepare breakfast for their involun- 
tary guests. 

It has been truly said that of aU the gatherings in and about 
the town of Dundee none is of more powerful interest, more 
picturesque in detail, or more illustrative of the time and 
people, than those of which the heroic reformer, George 
Wishart, was the central figure. The East gate of the town, 
when the other gates were abolished, was allowed to remain 
in honor of the old missionary's last sermon during the 
plague of 1544. At the risk of his life, and against the en- 
treaties of his friends, he had gone to the plague-stricken 
city, for, said he, 'Hhey are now in trouble and need com- 
fort." He was met by an immense crowd, and, mounting 
the parapet of the wall, he addressed both the afflicted and 
unafflicted, the afflicted being outside, lodged in huts or 
booths, long called the Sick Men's Yards, and the healthy 
within the gate. It was a striking scene, the crowds of 
eager, upturned faces on either side of the old gateway, and 
the tall figure of the preacher swaying on the top. ' ' By this 
sermon," says Knox, "he raised up the hearts of all that 
heard him that they regard not death, but judge them more 
happy that should depart than such as should remain 
behind." Not long after this Cardinal Beaton, lying on 
velvet cushions in the Palace of St. Andrew's, looked down 
with implacable hatred upon his enemy, chained to the 
stake, and heard him proclaim: "This grim fire I fear not," 
and as the noble Wishart spoke the powder exploded, the 



52 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

fagots blazed up, and soon, amid the cries and groans of 
the spectators, the scorched and strangled body of the 
martyr was reduced to ashes. 

Interesting as it is to linger on these memories of old 
towns, it is hardly within my province, and I must hasten 
on to the period when the cause of the Stuarts received its 
death-blow, and the distractions which the fierce partisans 
of the rival dynasties kept up gave way to peace and secu- 
rity, the sure precursors of manufactures and trade. 



XIV. 

Town Life in Olden Times. 

The inhabitants of those days, who were warned to bed by 
the sound of the bagpipe and the toll of the curfew, and 
carried to their graves by the tinkling of a hand-bell, sleep 
in the old cemeteries of Dundee; and the busy, energetic 
population of to-day will soon be deprived even of reading 
the numerous curious epitaphs of their predecessors in the 
old burial-grounds, for time is fast obliterating them. Some 
would have already been lost had not Thomson, in his ' ' Book 
of the Houff," made a note of them. At least, a statistician 
may be allowed to call attention to the large families of 
those times, as bearing on the statistics of population. Here 
is one: 

Hier lyis aue honest man, Walter Gourlay, mailman and burgess 
of Dundee, who died i 28 day of April, 1628, of the aige of 46 yeires, 
with his twenty bairnis. 

But the widow, it is presumed, did not long survive the 
husband, and using, as was the custom once in Scotland, 
her maiden name, she left these parting words for future 
generations to shed a tear over : 

Epyte Pie. Here lie I. My twenty bairns. My Good Man. 
And I. 



TOWN LIFE IN OLDEN TIMES. 63 

What a domestic history is condensed in this : 

Here Grisell Scott lies in this little tomb, 

With children six sprung froni her fruitful womb ; 

As many live ; was sixteen years a wife 

To her dear husband, in a holy life. 

There are many others, but I must leave them for the 
tombstone tourists, who will, no doubt, make them out better 
than I can. The citizens of those days would appear as 
quaint to us as the inscriptions on their tombstones. The 
head of the family breakfasted at the ale-house and in the 
evening enjoyed himself at the club over his *' two-penny " 
and his tobacco. The shopkeeper locked his door at 1 p. m. 
and retired to feed. ''His customers," says a writer of 
those times, ' ' were forced to wait his belly-fiUing, and there 
was no resource." Some of these shops contained a motley 
assortment of train-oil and salt, candles and molasses, black 
soap and sugar, all crowded into less than a square of three 
or four yards. The single one-horse chaise supplied the de- 
mands and travels of ail the inhabitants. The roads were 
bad, narrow, and unshapely. A journey to Edinburgh was 
a serious business for a thinking man. The streets of the 
town were dangerous for aged women and children. Horses 
neighed, kicked, and galloped atw^ill. Wounded animals 
escaping from the butchers' hands rarely failed to stick their 
horns into the first unguarded inhabitant. The streets were 
in a wretched state. The pavements were worse ; and stairs 
jutted out in the common path. Not a lamp was to be seen ; 
not even the shadow of light. Fashion did not change then 
as now, and the grandmother's marriage brocade served the 
granddaughter for her wedding garment. Surgeons, under- 
takers, grave-diggers, and wig and bonnet makers did a 
flourishing trade. The town revenue was in alow state, as, 
after the unheard-of extravagance of a town-hall, twenty 
years of economy followed in Dundee before the last of its 
public rooms was finished inside. As I have already shown 
was the case in Glasgow, so in Dundee ; Sunday was kept 



54 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

holy and decent. Old women went to church with Bible 
under one arm and folding-stool under the other. None but 
a straggling blackguard or two, deemed to be past all grace 
and reformation, were seen idle or parading the streets. 
Ladies wore monstrous hoops, and footed it to church in 
gorgeous attire. Cock-fighting was publicly taught or en- 
couraged at school. Dancing was taught, and a tall German, 
whose name was Noseman and who drank brandy, wore a 
silver-laced hat, silver buckles and cane, and walked upright 
as an oak, was the only teacher in town. 

And this is no exaggerated picture of town life in ''bonnie" 
Dundee before the dawn of trade in the eighteenth century. 
At this time the principal street of the town could not boast 
six houses completely built of stone. The shops did not rent 
at above £ 3 per annum, and many were closed altogether. 
In the midst of the depressed condition of affairs. Parlia- 
ment inaugurated the protective theory with Dundee, by 
granting a bounty on brown linens made for exportation — a 
manufacture which, from weight of fabric and lowness of 
price, could not then be carried on without a lo?s. This 
again revived trade, and stimulated the industry of the in- 
habitants. Manufactures were established and prosecuted 
with a success that operated in a most beneficial manner on 
the domestic habits and comforts of the people. From the 
estabhshment of the British Linen Company, the object of 
which was to encourage native industry by advancing 
money to the poorer manufacturers, the linen trade of Dun- 
dee underwent a rapid development. Warden, in his history 
of the linen trade, says that a large bonus was paid the 
manufacturer who first started flax-spinning by power, and 
from this time the trade became completely changed. The 
spinster and the hand-wheel of the last century gave place 
to the factory girl and the spindle of the present ; the manu- 
facture ceased in the rural districts, and became concen- 
trated in towns, where spinning-mills were erected. The 
manufacture of fine linens, lawns, cambrics, and "Glas- 
gows," which formed the stajjle in Glasgow and the West of 



TOWN LIFE IN OLDEN TIMES. 



55 



Scotland down till the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
has now become almost an extinct industry there, and has 
taken a deep hold of the eastern manufacturing districts, 
and centres principally in Dundee for yarns and heavy goods 
and in Dunfermline for fine damasks. Ireland, of course, 
takes the lead of all the three kingdoms, and indeed of 
Europe at the present time, in the production of linen fab- 
rics, as a glance at the following statistical exhibit will 
show : 



Countries. 



Ireland 

France 

Austria Hungary. 

Germany 

England 

Belgium 

Scotland 

Russia > . 

Italy 

Switzerland 

Holland 

Sweden 

Spain , 



Total , 



Number 

of 
Spindles. 



911,111 

762,047 

342,508 

318,467 

190,808 

289,000 

265,263 

144,734 

50,149 

9,000 

7,500 

3,810 



3,294,597 



Number 

of Power 

Looms. 



21,153 

18,323 

500 

8.000 

4,081 

4,755 

16,756 

2,500 

524 

"1*266 

98 
1,000 



78,790 



56 BBEAD^WINISEUS ABROAD, 

XV. 

Dundee— Among the Mill Hands. 

In the early days of mill-spinning in the East of Scotland, 
Mr. Warden says, it was with diflSiculty that a sufficient 
number of hands could be got for preparers, spinners, or 
reelers, and it was then the practice, in and around Dundee, 
for the owners of mills or their managers to attend the 
neighboring county fairs to engage hands, and sometimes 
open tent had to be kept all day as inducement to come 
to terms. Engagements were generally made for six or 
twelve months, as with farm and household servants at the 
present day. This was before the Factory Act, and mill 
operatives in towns had to labor fourteen and fifteen hours 
a day. The miserable pittances earned by the workers in 
this industry, then as now, perhaps explain why the flax 
industry migrated from the great iron districts of the West 
to the East of Scotland, and why it v/as the only industry 
which England permitted Ireland to embark in. In 1820 
the report of a Committee on the State of the Laboring 
Poor quoted the wages then paid in Dundee— to weavers of 
sacking, 7s. 6d. per week ; sail-cloth and bagging, 8s. 6d. ; 
osnaburgs, 9s. 6d. ; and sheetings, 10s. ; in all cases, an aver- 
age of a trifle over $2 a week for the best workmen. 
Female labor was still more miserably paid; women in 
mills rarely made 5s., or $1.20 a week; hand-spinners, when 
fully employed, 2s. 6d., but more generally Is. 2d. per 
week. It was said that women had to spin for $1 as much 
yarn as would reach from Dundee to Aberdeen— sixty-five 
miles. After a very careful inquiry and an examination of 
the books of several firms, the wages in this industry in 
Dundee may be said to have fiuctuated in the last thirty 
years as follows (I have made the estimate in United 
States money) : 



DUNDEE— AMONG THE MILL HANDS. 



m 





1853. 


1863. 


1873. 


1883. 


Spinning-mills. 


60 hrs. 


60 hrs. 


58 hrs. 


56 hrs. 




Per week. 


Per week. 


Per week. 


Per week. 


PreDarers 


$1 25 
1 35 

75 
1 20 
1 75 
5 00 


$2 00 
2 15 
1 50 

1 10 

2 50 
5 75 


$2 75 
2 70 

1 75 

2 00 

3 00 
7 50 


$2 25 


SDinners 


2 50 


Shifters 


1 50 


Boys 


2 00 


Heelers 


3 00 


Overseers 


7 00 






Factories. 

Winders 

Weavers 


1 75 

2 30 
4 50 

3 50 


2 00 
2 50 
5 75 
4 00 


2 75 

3 50 
6 00 

4 50 


3 50 
3 50 


Tenters 

WarDers 


6 50 
4 00 







I was repeatedly assured by the factory bands whom I 
met in an hour's stroll through the Scouringburn, perhaps 
the most thickly populated, and certainly the worst, quar- 
ter of the modern town of Dundee, that the spinners on the 
average earned about 8s. and 9s. a week, and the weavers a 
trifle more. I think the wages in the flax industry are a 
trifle higher than in the manufacture of jute goods. A 
large number of the operatives are Irish, and they will not 
compare in social condition to those of Paisley. Unques- 
tionably some of the mills, such as the Baxter Brothers', 
have accomplished something in the way of elevating the 
operatives, in the way of schools attached to the factory for 
the ^'half-timers," or children under fourteen, etc. But, 
upon the whole, the Dundee operatives are badly paid, and 
live, the best of them, from hand to mouth, and the worst 
in squalid misery. 

The Scouringburn, the operatives' quarter of the city, 
contains hundreds of houses totally unfit for human habita- 
tion. They are low gray -stone buildings with but one room 
on a floor, and windows about two feet square. Some of 
them which I entered fairly reek with filth, and I actually 



58 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

found in some whole families living like animals on the 
bare ground, with a couple of boards in the corner, upon 
which, covered with the vilest rags, the mother of the 
family lay dying, the man told me, literally of starvation. 
And yet this was within two rods of the police station. 
The room in which I witnessed this scene faced a public 
thoroughfare. It was lower than the street, and as the life 
of the poor starving creature on the floor was ebbing the 
slime from the drains oozed through the walls of the cellar 
and dropped in a thick pool in the corner. And yet in this 
same room were children, poor, pinched, half-naked, half- 
starved little creatures, who looked upon me in a terrified 
manner. I visited at least a dozen houses in this part of 
Dundee, and found the inmates in almost a similar state of 
misery and want. Some had been factory hands, and some 
were laboring men, who said it was impossible to get work 
even at 10s. and 12s. a week. They paid about 2s. a week 
rent for the dens they inhabited, and lived principally upon 
bread. The houses of the more thrifty operatives I found 
to be fairly comfortable, but not comparable with those in 
the neighborhood of Glasgow. The girls of the Scouring- 
burn patronize the public-houses with the men, and some of 
them are very rough. Some of the principal mills have 
greatly improved the tone of their employees by taking only 
respectable girls and promptly dismissing those who are 
found to be otherwise. 

The jute industry of Dundee was comparatively im- 
known before 1830. About 1824 a few bales of jute reached 
Dundee. Toward the end of 1833 James Taws first began to 
spin pure jute, and in 1835 jute yarn was regularly sold in 
the market. In 1838 the total importation of jute into 
Dundee was 1,136 tons, and in 1881 it exceeded 100,000 tons. 
The whole of the jute used in Europe and India is now 
estimated at 2,000,000 bales. Of this quantity Great Britain 
takes about 1,100,000 bales, and nine-tenths of all that 
comes into Great Britain is consumed in and around Dun- 
dee. In 1875 there were 35,000 persons employed in this 



DUNDEE— AMONG THE MILL BANDS. 



59 



industry in Scotland, but I am unable to obtain later sta- 
tistics. It will be seen that within a limited time this in- 
dustry sprang into the greatest importance, and enormous 
fortunes were made out of it ; but a natural desire to share 
the good thing led to the business being overdone, and, ac- 
cording to United States Consul Winter, the wages paid by 
the Dundee jute mills are even less than those in the long- 
established flax industry. The following table shows the 
average amounts received by the Dundee operatives in jute 
manufacturing per week of fifty six hours in 1881 : 



Pickers of jute (men) $4 15 

Strikers up (piece-work, 

women) 2 88 

Hands at softeners (young 

men) 3 15 

Preparers (women) 2 00 

Boys (14 to 15 years of age), 

jute workers 1 94 

Overseers (men) 6 25 

Coarse spinners of jute 

(women) 2 62 

Fine spinners of jute 

(women) 2 15 

Piercers (girls 14 to 15 years 

of age), jute workers 1 60 

Shifters (girls) 1 37 

Half-timers (boys and girls 

10 to 14 years of age) ... 60 
Peelers (piece work, wo- 
men) 2 75 

Bobbin - winders (piece 

work) 3 62 

Gop-winders (piece work, 

women) 3 37 



Warpers (piece woik, 

women) 

Overseers 

Single loom weavers (piece 

w^ork, women) 

Double loom weavers 

(piece work, women) . . . 

Tenters (men) 

Dressers (men) 

Overseers 

Croffers (men) 

Calenderers (men) 

Measurers (men) 

Laffers (men) 

Packers (men) 

Overseers (men) 

Mechanics, iron fitters and 

turners (men) 

Millwrights (men) 

Joiners 

Other tradesmen employed 

in these w^orks 

Overseers 



$3 75 
6 25 

2 50 

3 75 
6 25 
6 50 



25 
50 
00 
62 
00 



5 00 
7 50 

6 50 
6 50 
6 50 

6 50 

7 50 



The flax industry has suffered severely of late years from 
foreign competition. The strike in the jute industry at 
Dundee, Scotland, brought to light the wages paid opera- 
tives here and in India : 



60 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



Batching and preparing 

Spinning 

Warp- winding 

Weft-winding (piece-work). . 

Beaming 

Weaving 

Calender-house 

Laborers 



Dundee. 
(56 hours per week.) 




Calcutta. 
(52 hours.) 



$0 69 

1 20 

65 

1 56 

1 20 



Piecew'k,2 16 

1 20 

96 



The Dundee jute-worker finds himself competing in the 
world's markets with such wages as the above. Yet, free- 
traders in the United States reiterate at every banquet the 
insane cry that America ought to be making garments for 
the hundreds of millions of jute or flax or cotton clad 
peoples, competing at wages varying from 65 cents to $2.16 
per week. Why, even England herself stands appalled at 
this sort of competition. 

Already foreign countries have cut into the export trade 
of manufacturers of flax of Scotland and Ireland, while free 
admission of these goods into British ports has caused an 
increase in the imports, which means of course an invasion 
of the home market itself. Below I present a table showing 
the exports from and imports into the United Kingdom in 
pounds of linen yarn, between 1869 and 1880: 





Exports 


Imports. 


1869 


34,510,316 
37,239,314 
36,235,625 
31,187,051 
28,734,212 
27,154,906 
27,887,681 
22,238,259 
19,216,001 
18,473,800 
17,428,800 
16,437,200 


2,018,363 


1870.... 

1871 


3,081,597 
4 913 697 


1872 


3,723,260 
1,603 286 


1873 


1874 


1,875 640 


1875 


3 336 874 


1876 


3 404 305 


1877 


5 308 395 


1878 


5 969 434 


1879 


6 384,798 


1880 


5,958,731 







DUNDEE— AMONG THE MILL HANDS, 61 

The above table tells its own story. It is said that there 
are now 20,000 less persons engaged in the flax industry in 
Great Britain and Ireland than there were in 1861; and 
while some writers in England attribute the decline in this 
and other industries to the Factory Act, etc., there are a 
respectable minority who give the true cause, which is too 
much free trade. 

Although flax, hemp, and jute are the staples of Dundee, 
it has a ship-building interest, engineering and iron works, ^ 
and within fifteen years has gone into the manufacture of 
boots and shoes on a large scale. Its fishing interest is also 
important. Dundee is noted for its enterprise, and al- 
though its industrial history has been somewhat checkered, 
it may safely be said that it now has two staples— linen and 
jute. It once was celebrated for soap, glass, ale, and sugar- 
refining. Glass-making and sugar-refining have entirely 
died out. In 1866 linseed-oil crushing was begun with in- 
different success. Dundee marmalade has become famous. 
Ship-building once flourished, but is not so important as for- 
merly. The manufacture of cotton goods was also tried, 
but died away in favor of Glasgow. Attempts to establish 
woolen factories followed with the same result. But suc- 
cessive failures seem to have only stimulated these thrifty, 
hard-working Northerners, and after the bounty was 
offered by Government I have shown how they soon took 
the lead in linen and jute goods. Dundee has an abundant 
capital, and invests large amounts in the United States. It 
is about the size of Cleveland, though it can never become 
such an important city. There are some handsome resi- 
dences and a few fine public buildings. In the summer 
forth from this ancient town spreads one of the richest and 
most varied landscapes in Scotland. At this time of the 
year, and approaching it on a rainy day along the muddy 
banks of the Tay, it looked bleak and unattractive. The 
streets are weU paved, but the houses in the lower parts of 
the city belong to the old town, as described in the first 
part of this letter, and should give place to homes that 



62 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

would elevate instead of debase the poorly paid operatives 
of the mills. 



XVI. 

Coatbridge— Squalid Misery. 

This town is the center of the iron trade of Scotland, and 
of a region that annually produces about a million tons of 
pig-iron. Within a limited area there are more blast-fur- 
naces and a greater output of iron than are to be found in any 
other region of similar extent in the world. Coatbridge is 
situated in the midst of a picturesque county and intersected 
by a branch of the North Calder water. Like nearly all 
towns that have sprung into existence on account of proxim- 
ity of coal and iron mines, Coatbridge is a stragglingly built, 
badly paved, and, in the winter, a dreary -looking place, A 
majority of the houses in which the iron- workers reside look 
more like dirty gray-stone stables than human dwellings. 
They are one room, one-story, one-door and one- window edi- 
fices, generally inhabited by a man and his wife and their 
family. Within these dwarfed dwellings are the essence of 
cheerlessness, not to say squalid misery. In the daytime, in 
all weathers, children amuse themselves amid the rubbish 
thrown out of the only door. Hilarious fowls crow and 
cackle around the doorway and within the passage way, 
roosting at night with the family. Here and there one finds 
in these habitations neatness exhibited in a clean muslin 
blind or a scrubbed floor, but the majority of the women 
seem to partake of the general slovenliness of their sur- 
roundings, and do nothing to make their homes comfortable 
or attractive. The population is half Irish and half Scotch, 
and on pay -nights the public-houses are filled to overflowing, 
and the principal diversion of the place — fighting— begins 
and lasts till midnight. 



COATBRIDGE— SQUALID MISERY. 63 

*^ All the surplus money," said Mr. Allen, manager of the 
American Iron Works of Coatbridge, "goes for whisky. 
They will go without bread to buy it." 

On nearly every corner is a public-house, and at night the 
streets would indeed look gloomy were it not for the streams 
of Hght emanating from these gin-shops. 

For all this, the rehgious and the temperance people are 
not idle, and Mr. Allen told me that during his residence at 
Coatbridge— not over ten or twelve years — no less than nine 
new churches have been built. Indeed, this city reminds 
me of another town which I visited the other day in v\^hich 
the rival attractions of rehgion and drink, or the competi- 
tion between the churches and the "Pubs.," as they are vo- 
cally called here, had become so keen that the citizens had 
determined to ascertain which received the most patronage 
on the Sunday, the only day when the two came into direct 
competition. This town, it appears, abounded in earnest 
philanthropic effort. It has coffee palaces; agencies for 
lecturing, amusing, and otherwise elevating the British 
workman ; schools for all tastes, ages, and beliefs, and tem- 
perance associations innumerable. Like Coatbridge, it also 
abounded in flourishing public-houses. The experiment re- 
ferred to consisted of a census taken by the "Temperance 
Council" to ascertain how many persons attended divine 
service and how many were in the public-houses on the even- 
ing of Sunday, the 26th of last November. It resulted in 
showing that the former numbered 5,570 and the latter 
5,591— a majority of 21 for the "Pubs." I am not informed 
what kind of a night it was, for experts say that climatic 
considerations count in these inquiries. Rainy weather (I 
don't know why) is supposed to fill the public-houses ; while, 
oddly enough, fog is said to swell the attendance at 
churches. If this be true, both must have been weU at- 
tended these last four weeks, for it has either been foggy or 
raining ever since I landed. 



64 BBE AD -WINN BBS ABROAD. 

XVII. 

At the Theater Eoyal. 

Among the other attractions of Coatbridge is its *' Theater 
Royal." This is a large, dark-looking stone edifice fronting 
on one of the principal thoroughfares. The prices for ad- 
mittance were as astonishingly low as the acting was in- 
geniously bad. The gallery, threepence: pit, sixpence; 
dress-circle, one shilling ; and a private stall, two shillings. 
Thursday is the great night at the Theater Eoyal, Coacbridge 
—for that, an immense placard informs us, is "ladies' free 
night." Upon these free nights for ladies, the miner and 
laborer can take his "missis "and the mill- boy his "gal" 
and pass them in without charge. Of all the motley crowds 
I ever beheld that assembled at the Theater Eoyal, Coat- 
bridge, on "ladies' free night," carries off the palm. The 
" dress circle" and the " private stalls" were vacant, but the 
loft and pit were filled. Every variety of clay pipe and 
every assortment of vile tobacco was in use. Men and 
women alike talked loudly and chaffed each other, embel- 
lishing their conversation with profanity which was hardly 
leso revolting than the ribaldry from the stage. The au- 
dience was largely unwashed and attired in the clothes in 
which they left the mill or the blast-furnace. They were 
not, perhaps, such a vicious set as may be met in the Black 
Country or in South Wales, but they were grimy enough 
and uninteresting enough to inspire one wath a desire to 
leave Coatbridge, with its smoke and mud, its stagnant 
pools, its played-out iron-mines, its thriving tube- works and 
blast-furnaces, its busy mills, and its reputation as the cen- 
ter of the Scottish iron trade, and seek for fresh air and a 
broader horizon in the green fields and meadows which, 
strangely enough, surround the city. 



COATBEIDGE—'' IN HOPES TO BE MAIM WISE." 66 

XYIII. 

Coatbridge— "In Hopes to Be Mair Wise." 

In the best mills the average weekly earnings of the 
laborer are from 18s. to 20s. If he is married he pays from 
£5 to £6 a year for such a house as those described above. 
If he is single he can obtain board and lodging for about 10s. 
a week. These lodgings are on what might be called the 
Box-and-Cox plan; that is, the ''night haDds" occupy the 
beds by day, and the " day hands" by night, beds by this 
process doing double service. Of course the laborer cannot 
get much meat, as the prices of provisions are the same as 
in Glasgow. The miU hands earn, some as high as 35s., but 
I found from the books of one of the largest firms in Coat- 
bridge that the average weekly earnings of an engineer did 
not exceed 29s., or $7. Boys and young men make from 8s. 
to 10s. a week. 

The progress in the production of coal and iron in Scot- 
land has been great during the present century, having in 
the latter case increased from 8,000 tons in 1800, to the pres- 
ent annual yield of 1,000,000 tons. As I have before re- 
marked, the iron-producing materials are obtained over a 
comparatively small area, chiefly within and bordering on 
the valleys of the Clyde and Forth, and they are principally 
found in Lanarkshire (in which Coatbridge is located), 
Ayrshire being second in this respect. The other counties 
comprised within the coal and ironstone yielding area are 
Renfewshire and Dumbartonshire in the vale of the Clyde, 
and Stirlingshire, Fife, Clackmannan, Kinross, East 
Lothian, Midlothian, and Linlithgowshire, or West Lothian, 
in the vale of the l<'orth, and all comprised in the imaginary 
rectangle which in an earlier letter I described as contain- 
ing industrial Scotland. The blast-furnaces of Scotland are, 
with one exception, all situated within this area. Thus the 
5 



66 BEE AD' WINNEB8 ABROAD. 

iron making and producing districts may be said to extend 
from the Frith of the Forth a little to the east of Edinburgh 
to the opposite point on the west coast and to some distance 
south of this line, occupying, in short, that great central val- 
ley, consisting, for the most part, of the Upper Palaeozoic 
strata, and bounded by the northern highlands and southern 
uplands of the older Palaeozoic or Primary formations. 
This mineral district affords employment to about 80,000 per- 
sons in raising coal, ironstone, and lime alone. It is about 80 
miles in length, 40 miles in extreme breadth, and 1,500 yards 
deep. It is best developed in the vicinity of Coatbridge. 
According to the Eoyal Commissioners' report of 1871 (and I 
have no later statistics at hand), there were then contained 
over two thousand million tons of coal in Lanarkshire alone, 
and in the valley of the Clyde nine hundred million tons 
within 1,060 feet of the surface. The pits through which the 
minerals are raised vary from 30 to 180 fathoms in depth. 
The Government Inspector of Mines, Mr. Moore, makes the 
following annual estimate in respect to coal: 

Rents paid to proprietors $2,000,000 

Wages 10,000,000 

Sales ^ 15,000,000 

Capital sunk in collieries 17,000,000 

In 1875 the total minerals raised in the Scottish coal-fields 
amounted to 21,778,480 tons, consisting of coal, ironstone, 
limestone, and oil shale. It is this mineral wealth that has 
made the West of Scotland of such commercial importance. 
It is at the basis of the great iron ship-building interests of 
the Clyde, which I have already described ; and the cheap 
fuel has also attracted other industries, such as the large 
textile factories and chemical works which cluster round 
Glasgow and play such an important part in the trade of 
Scotland. 

The history of the manufacture of iron in Scotland when 
compared with that of the Forest of the Dean, in England, 
is comparatively modern, and may perhaps be dated from 



COATBEII)GE—''IN HOPES TO BE MAIR WISE,'' 6Y 

1760, when the celebrated Carron Ironworks were erected. 
This was the first place in Scotland where malleable iron 
was made. One of the principles of this company, and, I 
must confess, my experience leads me to add, of nearly all 
manufacturing firms in Scotland, is to keep the outside 
world ignorant of much of those internal economies which 
have been productive of so much commercial success. It is 
the most difficult task to obtain even trustworthy state- 
ments of the number employed and the wages paid, and 
almost impossible to find out anything of the technical 
operations. It was the Carron Ironv/orks that refused to 
admit the poet Burns, and upon returning to the inn at 
Carron he immortalized the works by writing the following 
verses on the window of the room into which he was shown : 

We cam na here to view your warks 

In hopes to be mair wise; 
But only, lest we gang to hell, 

It may be nae surprise. 

But when we tirled at your door, 

Your porter dought na bear us; 
So may, should we to hell's yetts come, 

Your billy, Satan, sair us. 

Both Scotch and English manufacturers dislike to have 
the amount of their business known, and, except in a few of 
the principal industries, where the associations themselves 
obtain the information, there are really no industrial statis- 
tics of Great Britain. Mr. Robert Giifen, of the statistical 
department of the Board of Trade, has, either from lack of 
funds or from the lack of desire on the part of manufac- 
turers to have these facts known, failed to present in his 
Miscellaneous Statistics volume any industrial statistics, 
and Dr. Bevan, in his admirable ^' Statistical Atlas of Great 
Britain, "presents an astonishingly meagre exhibit of the in- 
dustries of Great Britain. On the contrary, at home manu- 
facturers are always ready, whether wisely or not I do not 



68 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

care to discuss, to open their books and unlock the doors of 
their mills and factories to strangers ; and less distinguished 
people than the Ayrshire poet, if not in search of wisdom, 
could gain a fair idea of the future abode for the wicked by 
a visit at night to almost any great American iron and steel 
works. 



XIX. 

Dewsbury— Beer-shops and Gin-shops. 

Geographically speaking, this is the center of the 
woolen district of England. Dewsbury, centuries before it 
embarked in the shoddy business, was a place of importance 
in the infancy of the Christian religion. It was the largest 
parish in England, and had an area of 400 miles, including 
Huddersfield, Halifax, Bradford, and many towns of less 
importance It is even claimed that Paulinus, the first 
Archbishop of York, preached at Dewsbury some time in 
the seventh century, and as proof of this the ingenious in- 
habitants point to a cross on the church of the now sub- 
divided parish, and say it is after the model of one erected 
at an earlier date in commemoration of the event. This is 
the ancient history of Dewsbury. Its modern history, com- 
bined with that of the adjoining town of Batley, is the 
history of shoddy manufacture. In these towns are made 
shoddy blankets, shoddy beaver-faced goods, shoddy ' ' pres- 
idents," shoddy army cloths, shoddy plushings, shoddy 
druggets, and lately, I am told, shoddy sealskins. The 
shoddy trade, in fact, has taken about as deep root in Dews- 
bury as the story of Paulinus preaching there has in the 
minds of its people. Under the benign influence of its sister 
town, Batley (thirty years ago but a small market-village) 
went into the business, and to-day has 30,000 population and 
over fifty mills and factories. United, these towns defy all 



DEWSBUBT-BEER-SHOPS AND GIN-SHOPS. 



69 



Christendom in ^' heavy" and cheap cloths. What they 
contemptuously term "that iniquitous pound clause " in the 
United States tariff has 'throttled our trade with the 
States;" but in spite of "hostile tariffs" Dewsbury and 
Batley send their goods to all the Continental countries. 

A visit to Dewsbury on a bleak, wet winter day was not 
calculated to raise one's spirits. The station was dark and 



aKi}gtim 



JQKiey 







toJClea 






seALronvnuea; 



badly managed. The man at the ticket- window (called here 
"booking-clerk") was flirting with his sweetheart; the sta- 
tion-master was having a little " family settlement " with a 
shrill-voiced, hard-featured woman, undoubtedly his wife; 
an ancient beldame with a sharp, saucy tongue sat crouch- 
ing over the fire of the only waiting-room, and now and 
then broke out into a wild invective against a few anti- 
quated old Yorkshire men who, with short black clay pipes, 



70 BBEAD-WINNEB8 ABROAD, 

mixed with the fetid atmosphere of the room the vilest 
tobacco-smoke. A red-nosed, shabbily-dressed, skulking- 
looking Irishman offered to escort me to the ''Eoyal" and 
carry my luggage. Accepting the proffered service, I began 
the exploration of ancient Dewsbury. The hotels are such 
only in name. The "Royal," the "Scarboro," the "Wel- 
lington," on a visit faded into second-class public-houses. 
Not a respectable hotel is in the town, and yet it has 30,000 
inhabitants. The streets were narrow and crooked; beer- 
shops and gin-shops on every corner, no less than 150 being 
required to quench the diurnal thirst of the inhabitants of 
the town— one to every 200 souls, including babies. The 
windows of the clothing shops displayed only corduroy and 
duck suits and blue check shirts. Dewsbury booksellers 
retail books very much as the costermonger of the Seven 
Dials sells vegetables Saturday night, by the aid of flaring 
lights, the books being piled on empty packing-boxes. In 
and around the public-houses loiter the men without a job, 
and at the entrances of the numerous little courts, alleys, 
and passages insufficiently clad women shivered and gos- 
siped. The factories are large gray-stone buildings walled 
in like prisons, with vigilant porters stationed at all the en- 
trances lest strangers should accidentally get into the facto- 
ries and appropriate the new designs or otherwise find out 
something of their internal economy. The manufacturers 
seem about as hard and sharp as the machines which weave 
their mungo and shoddy into cloth. The hands are ground 
down to the lowest penny, and a recent strike among the 
operatives brought out the fact that the average earnings of 
all hands, including the high-priced overseers and foremen, 
was only 16 shillings, or $4, a week at Dewsbury and Bat- 
ley. The rent of one or two rooms, in the poorest locality 
of the town, is £7 a year. These immense factories straggle 
along on the outskirts of Dewsbury for many miles, and 
without exaggeration might be said to extend in all direc- 
tions for a distance of twenty -two and one-half miles, with 
Dewsbury for a center. 



THE WOULD' a WOOLEN REGION. 



71 



The World's Woolen Region. 



I have made the above pen-and-ink sketch of the York- 
shire cloth and woolen districts on a scale that will come 
within a single column of the Tribune^ so that the reader 
can see at one glance that a circle of less than forty-five 
miles in diameter contains the great woolen and worsted 
regions of England, I might say of the world ; and that 
the town I am writing from (Dewsbury) is geographically 
the hub. 



Municipal 

Boroughs. Population. 

Leeds 309,126 

Sheffield 284,410 

Bradford 183,082 

Huddersfield 81,825 

Halifax 73,633 

Rotherham 34,732 



Municipal 

Boroughs. Population. 

Wakefield 30,573 

Barnsley 29,789 

Dewsbury 29,617 

Batley 27,514 

DoDcaster 21,130 

Pontefract 8,798 



Urban Sanitary- 
Districts. Population. 

Keighley 25,245 

Todmorden 23,861 

Castleford 10,553 

Heckmondwike 9,826 

Bingley 9,542 

Harrogate 9,482 

Brighouse. 7,964 

Otley 6,803 



Urban Sanitary 

Districts. Population. 

Selby 6,033 

Honley 5,070 

Skipton 4,733 

Ilkley 4,700 

Tadcaster 4,300 

Guiseley 3,706 

Penistone 2,254 



Parliamentary Borough. 
Knaresboro 5 ,000 



Estimating 'the present city and town population of Eng- 
land at 15,000,000, it will be seen that the above places contain 
more than one-fifteenth of the entire urban population ; but 
if to this should be added the population of the other small 



72 BBEAD-WINNEBS ABROAD, 

towns and villages and the rural population, the above area 
would contain nearly all of the 1,830,000 inhabitants of the 
West Eiding of Yorkshire. It is, to-day, one of the busiest 
manufacturing spots on the globe, mills and factories having 
sprung up in every direction. The clear streams that for- 
merly meandered through the green valleys are now as 
black as ink, and the never-ceasing smoke from the tall 
chimneys has tinged the verdure and the foliage with gloom. 
In early times this region was considered wild, and I believe 
was put down in Domesday-Book as waste. It was origi- 
nally given to the De Laceys and Earl Warren by Wilham 
the Conqueror, when he parceled out England to those who 
*^ came over " with him. Warren, who had married the old 
King's daughter, came in for a good share of the spoils, and 
managed to retain it in his family for nearly three centuries. 
Those old Warrens were a queer set. One of them, John, 
built Sandal Castle, which more properly might have been 
termed Scandal Castle, for it seems he built it to hold secure 
from her husband a neighboring earl's wife, whom *' he con- 
tracted a passion for. " The De Laceys were made happy with 
Pontefract and a hundred and a half of manors, including 
Bradford, and it is said that he was so grateful that his son 
founded KirkstaU Abbey to prove it, and, if my memory 
serves me right, there was a famous narrow passage in a 
vault under this abbey by which women's virtue was tried ; 
those women who had kept their honor easily passing 
through it, while those whose characters were suspicious, 
by some peculiar miracle, stuck fast. It was an easy matter 
in those days to make dukes and earls, and as soon as the 
kings got fairly started at the business they were "girding 
on a sword, putting on a cap and circle of gold on your head, 
and delivering of a golden rod," with an injunction that 
^' you shall have, as free as any other earl, the third penny 
of the district ;" and the deed was done. The De Laceys were 
not so fortunate as the Warrens, for they were dispossessed 
of their barony for fighting against Henry I., and it after- 
ward fell to old John of Gaimt. But I don't suppose the 



THE WOBLUS WOOLEN REGION. 73 

present dwellers in these busy, smoky towns care or know 
much about the old fellows whose distant ^' footsteps echo 
through the corridors of time," and who, at the best, were 
little better than their fiery leader who marched with his 
army in the winter through the wild hills and the then path- 
less district, represented in the map above, which is now 
rich with modes of industry then undreamed of. That ter- 
rible Christmas he organized a plan of vengeance which 
involved the destruction of every living man, and every 
article that could minister to the sustenance of life. The 
country was left a waste, and the condition of the people of 
the West Eiding was described in Edward II. 's reign as 
miserable and wretched in the extreme. Pestilence and 
famine aggravated the miseries of feudal oppression and the 
calamities of war. 

In the time of the Stuarts the bustling manufacturers of 
this region were always to be found on the side of the Par- 
liament and the people ; for by that time they had learned 
the value of industries, and the lesson that war with its 
attendant uncertainty meant, in those days, ruin and devas- 
tation where property had accumulated and industry had 
dawned. 

It is supposed that Henry VII. set on foot the manufac- 
ture of coarse woolen goods in Yorkshire, and that Wake- 
field, Leeds, and Halifax were among the first towns to start 
the industry. After the ruin of the trade in the Spanish 
Netherlands was established the fine woolen manufacture 
of Wiltshire. One of the earhest woolen manufacturers who 
seem to have figured in history was famous Jack Winch- 
comb. In the reign of Henry VIII. Jack is described as 
being '^ one of the greatest clothiers that ever was in Eng- 
land, he keeping 100 looms in his house, and in the expedi- 
tion to Floddenfield against the Scots marched 100 of his 
own men, all armed and clothed at his own expense." In 
1568 the Flemish refugees settled in various parts of the 
kingdom, and from that time may be dated the beginning 
of the woolen industry of Great Britain. In the reign of 



74 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

William and Mary the woolen manufacturers in England 
turned their artillery against that business in Ireland, and 
all the towns of Yorkshire petitioned Parliament to suppress 
all exportation of woolens from Ireland, and to utterly dis- 
courage the prosecution of its manufacture there, "lest," 
said this generous petition, *^ in time they should be able to 
work up ail their own wool, and England be deprived of its 
usual supply from thence ; that this was but an act of self- 
preservation in England, the mother country, which there- 
fore as such had a right to dictate not only in that particu- 
lar, but in some others, and, moreover, to command a 
monopoly of their raw wool." It resulted in the prohibition 
under severe penalty of the exportation of wool or woolen 
goods from Ireland, except by way of England, and in the 
crushing-out of the industry in Ireland. After this it was 
supposed that the importation of China and Persian silks, 
and Indian painted, printed, or stained calicoes, injured the 
woolen manufacture of England, so it was coolly prohibited. 
This, of course, stimulated the business of printing, painting, 
staining, and dyeing calicoes in England. Whereupon the 
silk manufacturers and the woolen manufacturers " brought 
pressure" on Parliament to abate the '* great and grievous 
fashion which abated the use of silk and woolen goods." 
One man actually had the courage to condemn the course of 
the silk and woolen men and justify the use of calico as in- 
terfering, he said, with neither silks, which were a dearer 
article, nor worsteds, which were a cheaper. His argument 
was denounced by the statesmen of the times as "extremely 
confident and foolish," and an act was passed to "preserve 
and encourage the woolen and silk manufacture of the king- 
dom, and for the effectual employment of the poor by pro- 
hibiting the using and wearing (after December 25, 1722) of 
all printed, painted, stained, or dyed calicoes, except those 
dyed all blue; also all stuffs made or mixed with cotton, 
except muslins, neckcloths, and fustians. " After the passage 
of this act the silk and woolen interests undoubtedly felt 
safe. 



THE BABBEB OF PRE8T0N. 



75 



XXL 

The Barber of Preston. 



A BARBER of Preston, who had invented a hair-dye and 
was peddling it through the country and dyeing people's 
wigs, who was at the best rough-mannered and coarse, and 
whose friends upon one occasion, in a heated election con- 
test, had to buy him a suit of clothes in order to get him out 
to vote, was soon to revolutionize the woolen trade of the 
world and to found the great cities the names of which are 
now known all over the civilized portion of the earth ; and 
yet, as I have already shown, all this was to be accomplished 
within a radius of twenty-two and a half miles and in a dis- 
trict which was tossed over by a victorious king to a couple 
of his savage adherents. The inventions of Arkwright, the 
barber, and of B*argreaves, gave the impetus to this trade 
which even in their time had reached in England to the 
following relative importance : 



Value of Products. 

Woolens £16,800,000 

Leather 10,500,000 

Flax.... 1,750,000 

Hemp. 890,000 

Glass 630,000 

Paper 780,000 

Porcelain 1,000,000 



Value of Products. 

Silk £3,350,000 

Cotton... 960,000 

Lead 1,650,000 

Tin 1,000,000 

Iron 8,700,000 

Steel 3,400,000 

Small manufactures.. 5,250,000 



Total £56,660,000 



The eye and hand no longer helped 

To guide and stretch the gently loosening thread, 
but 

Spools, cards, wheels and looms, with motion quick, 
And the ever murmuring sound 

of the factory, with its thousands of operatives, ushered 
into existence the new order of things. 



76 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

It is of that new order of things which the subsequent 
letters from the great cities of the woolen region will deal 
with more in detail. In this letter I merely attempt a glance 
at the region as a whole, and to facilitate that, and at the 
same time to map out my route of travel, the above map of 
the woolen region is presented. It is a curious fact that 
within the region given only three of the towns carry on 
the manufacture of cotton— Skipt on, Keighley, and Otley — 
and yet a brisk walk would take us into the great cotton 
districts of the world. Equally surprising. is the fact (and 
this surprised several Yorkshire woolen manufacturers when 
I told them) that not a woolen or w^orsted mill or factory 
exists in Yorkshire outside of the district indicated on the 
Tribune's map. There are more furnaces at Leeds, Brad- 
ford, Normantown; linen manufactures at Barnsley; some 
silk manufactures at Leeds, Otley, and Halifax; shoddy 
manufactures at Dewsbury and Batley, also carpet manu- 
factures ; while Avoolen and worsted manufacturing is car- 
ried ou extensively at Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Hali- 
fax, Saltaire, Otley, Bingley, Keighley, Cleckheaton, Wake- 
field, Morfield, Holmfirth, Knaresboro, and several other 
smaller places. Wakefield and Doncaster are the farming 
centers of the district. In old Camden's time licorice was 
grown at Knaresboro; now it has migrated south and is an 
extensive industry at Pontefract. Of the entire area I have 
described about 13 per cent is cultivated in grain and 44 
per cent is permanent pasture, Doncaster and Wakefield 
being the markets. In the last few years stock-raising has 
decreased. Bradford, Leeds, Pontefract, Danbury, Wake- 
field, Huddersfield, Doncaster, Barnsley, Eotherham, and 
Sheffield are all on coal-beds, there being in the entire dis- 
trict 523 coal-mines. The death rate of the woolen region is 
not so high as in the cotton districts, though, strangely 
enough, it is so near: Leeds, 22.^ in 1,000; Bradford, 21.2; 
Huddersfield, 23; Halifax, 21.4; and Sheffield, 21.3; as 
against Manchester, 27; Salford, 25; Liverpool, 27; and 
Wigan, 25. For educational purposes most of these places 



THE BARBER OF PRESTON. 



77 



have endowed grammar schools; there are nearly 200 board 
schools (besides a share in nearly 1, 500 Church of England 
schools), 124 Roman Catholic schools, and 94 Wesley an 
schools. There is a Technical College at Leeds, and Schools 
of Art at Keighley, Shifley, Halifax, London, Rotherham, 
Sheffield, and Selby. 

The statistics of the British census of 1881 show that there 
are now 233,256 operatives engaged in the wool and worsted 
industry. In 1871 there were 253,490. The decrease since 
1871 is 20,234. In the United States we had 120,000 so em- 
ployed in 1870, and in 1880, 162,000, an increase of 42,000. 
Here are the wages paid in a woolen-mill in Aberdeen, 
Scotland, and in a mill in every respect similar in New 
York. The figures are taken from the books of the two 
concerns. 



Wool-sorters — overseer. 

Men 

Dyers^men 

Carding — overseer , 

Card-tenders — girls. . . 
Spinning — overseer 

Men 

Boys 

Warping — overseer. .. 

Dresser tenders — men 

Children 

Weaving — overseer 

Section hands 

Weavers 



New York. 



$18 00 
12 00 

7 00 
20 00 

4 00 
18 00 

12 00 
4 00 

18 00 

10 50 

50 to 4 00 

30 00 

13 50 
10 00 



Scotland. 



$7 50 
5 50 
3 70 

16 50 

2 00 
7 00 

1*50 
7 50 
Women, 4 50 
1 50 
16 50 
7 50 

3 75 



Here are some additional wages tables: 
\In this and following tables M stands for men, '^ for women y Y V for 

young people.'] 

WOOLEN GOODS. 



United States. 

Weekly Wages. 

Overseers (carding) $20 25 

(finishing) 13 50 



England. 

Weekly Wages. 

Overseers (cardina) $8 00 

'V (finisliing) 7 00 



78 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 



WASHING AND CARDING. 



Carders, M $8 25 

W 4 40 

Washers, M 8 10 



Carders, M $6 40 

W 2 60 

Washers, M 5 40 



DRAWING AND SPINNING. 



Drawers-in, W $6 60 

Spinners, M 8 00 

** W 6 00 



Drawers-in, W $2 75 

Spinners, M 6 00 

'' W 2 60 



WEAVING. 



Weavers, M $7 50 

W 7 25 



Weavers, M |5 25 

W 4 10 



FINISHING. 



Finishers, M $7" 50 

YP 5 85 

Loom-fixers 11 10 

Finishing overseers 35 00 

Shearers 4 50 

Pressmen 8 00 

Giggers and fullers 7 50 



Finishers, M $5 50 

YP 2 45 

Loom-fixers 5 85 

Finishing overseers 15 00 

Sliearers 3 75 

Pressmen 3 75 

Giggers and fullers 3 75 



WORSTED GOODS. 



Overseers (combing) $33 00 

(drawing) 32 75 

(spinning) 36 00 



Overseers (combing) $6 55 

(drawing) 7 80 

** (spinning) 7 00 



Sorters, M. 



WOOL SORTING. 

.$10 75 I Sorters, W. 



$6 65 



WASHING, CARDING, AND COMBING. 



Backwasher $7 10 

Carders, M 6 50 

W 4 75 

Combers, M 7 50 

W 5 50 

Gill boxes, W 5 80 

Preparers, W 5 40 

Washers, M 7 10 



Backwasher $4 50 

Carders, M 6 50 

W 3 10 

Combers, M 6 75 

W 3 00 

Gill boxes, W 3 80 

Preparers, W 2 50 

Washers, M 5 76 



THE BABBEB OF BBE8T0N. 



79 



DRAWma AND SPINNING. 



Doffers, YP $3 60 

Drawers, M 8 30 

- W 5 85 

Spinners, M 6 00 

W 5 10 



Doffers, Y P $2 00 

Drawers, M 6 50 

" W 2 65 

Spinners, M 4 00 

W 3 10 



SPOOLINa. 



Warpers, W. $5 70 

Winders, W 5 25 , 



Warpers, W $3 15 

Winders, W 2 40 



WEAVING. 



Weaver (1 loom), M $7 95 

- (1 ^' ), W 7 10 

Weavers (2 looms), W 7 60 



Weaver (1 loom), M $4 90 

'' (1 '' ), W 3 70 

Weavers (2 looms), W. . . . 3 90 



Finishers, M. 



FINISHING. 

$6 60 I Finishers, M. 



$5 40 



CLOTH ROOM. 

Packers, M $7 00 j Packers, M. . . 

YP.. 5 40 *♦ YP. 



1^4 80 
3 40 



MECHANICS. 



Blacksmiths, M $11 50 

Machinists 12 80 

Masons 15 00 



Blacksmiths, M $7 80 

Machinists 6 60 

Masons 6 90 



ENGINEERS, ETC, 

Engineers $18 00 

Firemen 8 80 

Watchman 8 75 



Engineers $7 00 

Firemen 6 00 

Watchman 5 35 



GENERAL HANDS. 



Teamsters $9 00 

Laborers. ... 8 00 



Teamsters $5 25 

Laborers 4 90 



80 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



But the industry and energy of this remarkable district 
do not banish from it crime, and the poor, the Great Mas- 
ter has said, ^'ye always have with you." It takes an 
army of 2,000 pohcemen, whose tramp may be heard on the 
streets, and down the alleys and courts of the cities of the 
cloth district, to remind society that it must not beat its 
wife, vivisect its children, and jump on its mother. And 
as the tramp is heard, society gives its family a momentary 
respite, but also, judging from the police returns from these 
cities, it goes back to its favorite pastime as the tread of the 
law grows fainter and fainter. But what palatial mansions 
do we find in the cloth districts for the poor? Fifty thou- 
sand of them last year received relief. Will Americans 
credit the fact that in the narrow limits of less than an area 
of 600 square miles the following workhouse accommodation 
is thought necessary? 



Place. 



Capacity of 
Workhouse. 



Bradford 778 

Dewsbury 399 

Doncaster 300 

Halifax 465 

Huddersfield 450 

Keighley 264 

Knaresboro 150 

Leeds, 2J ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;•; f^^ 

Pontefract 200 

Rotherliam 295 

Selby 189 

Sheffield 750 

Skipton 200 



Capacity of 
Place. Workhouse. 

Wakefield 369 

Wetherby , 80 

Saddleworth 200 

Barnsley 293 

Otley 100 

Bramley 214 

K Bierley 326 

Honley 208 

Pennistone 113 

Ecclesfield 262 

Eccleshall 490 

HewesworUiy 95 

Holbeck 119 



And these are the ^'unions" of the woolen region, with 
accommodations amply sufficient for the poor worn-out 
mechanics, working for a pittance out of which nothing can 
be saved, with no future, only at the close of life to ex- 
change the quick rattle of the shuttle and the spindle for 
the dull thud of the English poor-law. 



BRADFORD— ANCIENT AND MODERN 81 

XXII. 

Bradford— Ancient and Modern. 

Bradford is situated in the part of Yorkshire that fell at 
the time of the Conquest to the De Laceys, who were " Nor- 
mans of gentle birth" and "attendants on the king." In- 
deed, as I remarked in my last letter, the De Laceys and 
the Warrens seem to have come in for most of the West 
Eiding of Yorkshire. One would suppose that a hundred 
or so manors, and a score or two towns each, would have 
made these fiery barons indifferent to an odd pasture ; but, 
unhappily, such was not the case, as we read of one of the 
young De Laceys — Henry, I think — going into training, be- 
fore he was of age, to fight the Earl of Warren, who, not con- 
tented with allowing his cows to browse in the De Lacey 
meadows, had actually appropriated one of that Earl's past- 
ures. Bradford, after undergoing for several centuries the 
vicissitudes of the De Laceys' fortunes, seems to have come 
through marriage to "Old John of Gaunt, time-honored 
Lancaster," and on his death Eichard II. did the town the 
honor of capturing it, and with Bradford the remainder of 
John's immense estate ; but the same year he was dethroned, 
and Henry Bolingbroke succeeded both to the throne and 
the estate, and Bradford seems to have become the property 
of the crown. In early times Bradfordians had a queer way 
of combining business and piety, and so they made Sunday 
mai*ket-day. It is said they did a little piety in church and 
a good deal of business at the market- standings. Though 
not so exact in their observances of Sunday as the Glasgo- 
vians, Bradford people would never encourage laziness nor 
tolerate drunkenness, and as early as the seventeenth cen- 
tury they suppressed the greater part of the ale-houses and 
set the loafers to work. With these fundamental ideas of 
industry it is hardly surprising that the Bradford people 
6 



82 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

were too busy to brook delay in settling the differences be- 
tween the people and the Stuarts. The town had become 
embroiled in the war, and the people furiously repulsed the 
Eoyalists and drove them back to Leeds. Writing from 
Bradford to his [father, Sir Thomas Fairfax said: *' These 
parts grow very impatient of our delay to beat them (the 
Eoyalists) out of Leeds and Wakefield, for by them all trade 
and provisions are stopped, so that the people in these cloth- 
ing towns are not able to subsist." Their impatience arose 
from the breaking-up of their trade and the closing of their 
markets. 

The assault of the Eoyalists, however, left a lasting mark 
on Bradford and finished it for some time for trade and 
manufacture, and it was not until nearly a century later 
that the town began to recover itself. At the close of the 
eighteenth century prosperity seems to have come to Brad- 
ford all at once, and from a place of a little over 13,000 in 
1801, it now has a population of about 185,000. In 1773 
Piece Hall was erected, and before the nineteenth century 
had begun the first worsted mill was built and the founda- 
tion of its present trade laid. At this time the district was 
crowded with hand-loom weavers and spinners, and the 
worsted manufacture began to assume considerable impor- 
tance. Calimancoes, shalloons, and a few taminies were 
then the chief products of the Bradford looms. Dr. Doran 
very properly dates the later importance of Bradford from 
1831, when the Eeform Bill helped to raise it to the dignity, 
of a Parliamentary borough with the privilege of returning 
two members. The local newspapers of that time show 
most amusingly their sense not only of increased dignity, 
but of increased responsibilities. ^' There is an undisguised 
consciousness," says Dr. Doran, ^'that the eyes of Europe 
(not to say of the world generally) are fixed upon the new 
borough, a municipal borough, with a worshipful mayor 
and corporation." Who, I might add, for so Mr. Grinnell, 
the United States Consul, has to-day informed me, have 
since administered local government with the success that 



BRADFORD— ANCIENT AND MODERN. 83 

has certainly not been attained in any city of the size in 
our own country, if it has been in England. 

The local papers of the days of municipal reform in Eng- 
land give an incident worth recalling, as showing what con- 
stituted a Radical in the early days of Bradford's municipal 
existence. Hardy and Lister were the Radical candidates. 
Hardy made the declaration at the nomination. He was 
for vote by ballot. That was all. He was against triennial 
Parliaments and household suffrage. Ba.nks, the Conserva- 
tive, announced as his platform 'Hhe limitation of the 
hours of labor for women and children." The Radicals 
were elected. They sent their sons to be chaired in place of 
themselves, and the roughs tossed the lads out of the cars 
and smashed the chariots of triumph. Commenting on this 
incident, the authority already quoted remarks : ' ' The Brad- 
ford ' man-folk ' were always vigorous in arms as well as 
speech — sometimes cruel." In the old days of riot they 
burned mills and broke up machines with a fury of delight. 
It was their method of argument — a ''discussion wid 
sticks," as our Hibernian friends at home would call it. The 
ignorantiy blind Marchioness of Hertford prevented a rail- 
way being built between Bradford and Leeds because it 
would encroach upon some land of hers which lay between. 
Rails, mills, and machinery all now exist in spite of these 
ignorant individuals. Bradford generally got the worst of 
her strikes. That of the wool-combers and stuff -weavers in 
1825 lasted nearly six months, and was finally wound up by 
the departure of the treasurer with the funds. 

Bradford lies at the bottom of an irregular basin of hills, 
every outlet of the town, except the narrow valley which 
follows the course of the beck and runs out into Airedale, 
being more or less of an ascent. The streams that descend 
into it and converge in the Bradford beck, and the exten- 
sive beds of coal in the immediate vicinity, are exceptional 
advantages for the manufacturer. Mills and workshops 
are here crowded together and extend for miles around, and 
the w^hole community is busy and active. There are some 



84 BBEAD'WINNEBS ABROAD, 

uncommonly fine buildings in the town, and I tbink tbe 
City Hall is far bandsomer tban that of Leeds. There are 
at the present time over 200 worsted mills in the town, but 
I shall reserve for my next letter a detailed account of my 
visits to these mills, together with a description of the con- 
dition of tbe operatives. I can now only deal, in a general 
way, with Bradford, its history, the peculiarity of its peo- 
ple and the present condition of its trade. 



XXIII. 

The Dialect of the Worsted Eegion. 

The Bradford dialect is very peculiar, and, Mr. Cunning- 
ham, who has given Yorkshire dialects considerable careful 
study, claims, ^ indigenous to the town itself." When Dr. 
Doran visited Bradford with the British Association, he re- 
marked in his customary happy way : ' ' The vowels at Brad- 
ford are altogether of a very loose way of life." For ex- 
ample, a is short in ^' shape," which becomes shap; it takes 
a mincing sound of e in '' wash;" and in ''dance" it becomes 
a very round o indeed. While a becomes e in ''wash," e 
becomes a in "very," and it doubles itself, becomes ee in 
" wet," and not only doubles itself, but claps an a on to the 
doubling in "fret," which is pronounced /ree-af. J is short 
and long, where in other places it is long and short ; "pink" 
ispeenJc, and "blind" rhymes to "pinn'd." The remainder 
of the vowel family is equally perverse, and utterly never 
to be depended upon. The diphthongs imitate them in auda- 
cious lawlessness, and popular Bradford conversation star- 
tles the ear with such phrases as "Shoo coom dahn stairs f 
hur bare fit a wick ago, an's bin poorly ivver sin'." Some 
words I never heard used elsewhere: for example, "frame" 
—a Bradfordian " frames" to his business, " frames" to his 
amusements, and "frames" to his everything. The Brad- 



BRADFORD— DECLINE OF THE WORSTED TRADE. 85 

ford girls can ^' hug" anything, but not anybody — for ^'hug" 
means to "carry." The word '' anent" is here still used for 
opposite, and to come "through" New York means that I 
came from there. After struggling with it the visitor is 
apt to say (if he can) with Mr. Cunningham, "I feear its 
noan so eeasy to leearn." One glance at a native book and 
I have done. In "Poems and Songs," by a Yorkshire 
"Lik'nass Takker," the minstrel thus sings of the Apollo 
Belvidere: 

All reyt and stray t i' mak and shap, 
A mould for t' raace o' men; 

A dalinreyt, upreybt, bang oop chap, 
Not mitch unlike my sen! 



XXIV. 

Bradford— Decline of the Worsted Trade. 

There has been a great deal written about the recent de- 
cline of trade in Bradford, but judging from what I have 
heard from representative men during my stay in the city, 
the information that has from time to time reached the 
United States about *'Poor Bradford" has not attributed 
the decline to the right cause. It is an alarming fact for 
any nation to be met with the startling figures that in one 
branch of industry, that of worsted yarns and stuffs, the ex- 
portations from the country have declined from $135,000,000 
in 1872 to $81,000,000 for the year just closed. Not only has 
Bradford lost a great part of the foreign, but it has failed to 
retain its hold of the home trade. Innumerable causes have 
been given for this decline. Short hours, hostile foreign 
tariffs, want of taste and skiU on the manufacturers' part, 
lack of enterprise on the merchants' part, an insufficient 
distributive system, lack of character in the dyeing ; and 
lastly, Parhament has become alarmed at the general con- 



86 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

dition of manufactures throughout the empire, and a com- 
mission has been appointed to look into the question of 
Technical Education, and that is brought forward by some 
as a sure panacea for the evil. 

To understand the trade of Bradford it is necessary to 
have a general idea of the divisions of what, generically 
speaking, may be called the woolen trade. [Leeds, it should 
be remembered, manufactures every variety of woolen 
cloth produced in England, and, while Bradford makes 
some cloth, its specialty has always been what is called the 
worsted trade, including worsted yarns, worsted stuffs for 
ladies' dresses, such as Orleans and Coburgs, also alpaca or 
mohair goods and all sorts of mixed stuffs. The Hudders- 
field trade is similar to that of Leeds, while Halifax is given 
over more to carpets, window-curtains, damasks, and, in 
short, to what may be termed a subdivision of the Bradford 
trade. It will be seen at once that the all-wool trade, em- 
bracing mostly men's cloth goods, would be subject to less 
fluctuation through fashion than that of dress goods for 
women's wear, and hence that the Leeds and Huddersfield 
trade would be more staple than that of Bradford and Hali- 
fax. Dewsbury and Batley are largely given over to the 
shoddy and mungo trade, and, though an important part of 
the woolen region, maybe dismissed in the consideration of 
the Bradford branch of this industry. It is a fact worth 
recording that while the exportation of worsted goods from 
the kingdom has declined $54,000,000 in the last decade, in 
articles for men's wear (or woolen manufactures) the manu- 
facturers have not only held their own at home, but have 
increased the foreign trade of Great Britain in woolen cloths 
from $35,000,000 in 1872 to $48,000,000 in 1881— an increase of 
$13,000,000. Mr. Thomas lUing worth, of Bradford, thinks 
that this fact does not show a lack of skill or taste, and 
thinks that the decline in the worsted trade may be traced 
to the fact that Bradford founded its prestige on the success- 
ful combination of cotton warps with yarns spun from 
English and other long-stapled wools. At that time, wools 



BRADFORD— DECLINE OF THE WORSTED TRADE, 87 

of the merino kind were scarce, and the supply came chiefly 
from Spain and G-ermany. The Austrahan colonies had not 
then startled the world by their wonderful development of 
the sheep industry, which practically changed the woolen 
trade, and the sheep industry in our own country was but 
in its infancy, and had not grown to its present magnitude. 
It was at this time, when all-wool goods made from the soft 
merino wools were very dear, that Bradford, instead of 
slowly drifting with the trade in all-wool goods, and chang- 
ing from English to foreign wools, chose rather to cast its 
fortune with an entirely new industry, and for a time, it 
must be confessed, the manufacturers reaped a rich harvest. 
Bradford changed from worsted to cotton warps. The dear- 
ness and scarcity of all-wool fabrics gave a great stimulus 
to the Bradford trade. Giant mills were built and millions 
of capital were invested. Under this stimulus Sir Titus Salt 
erected what may be well termed a palace of industry, and 
founded a town, not less remarkable than Pullman, now 
called Saltaire. The immense factory was opened amid the 
merry peals of the Shipley church bells, and the discharge 
of ordnance in front of the works welcomed the guests to 
a grand banquet. Earls and lords made speeches, and the 
new era of alpacas and mohairs was ushered in with such 
songs as : 

From Peru he has brought the Alpaca, 

From Asia's plains the Mohair ; 
With skill has wrought both into beauty, 

Prized much by the wealthy and fair. 
He has Velvets, and Camlets, and Lustres ; 

With them there is none can compare ; 
Then off, off, with your hats and your bonnets. 

And hurrah for the Lord of Saltaire. 

Even Charles Dickens celebrated Sir Titus by making him 
the subject of a sketch in "Household Words." But after a 
generation of great success the Bradford people no longer 
hurrah for the " Lord of Saltaire," but will tell you the trade 



88 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

he started was but a temporary one, the prosperity visionary, 
at least for the second generation, and that to no one was 
the trade of Bradford more indebted for its estrangement 
from all-wool fabrics than to Sir Titus Salt. Up to 1836 the 
Bradford worsted trade had a run of success, and to this 
time its fabrics were made wholly of wool. In 1838 cotton 
warps became a feature in the Bradford trade. The "Or- 
leans cloth" seems to have been the first standard product. 
From this time the manufacture of all-wool goods declined, 
and by 1845 the town had entirely ceased to cultivate the 
trade. As I have shown, the use of cotton warps received 
a great impetus when the late Sir Titus Salt fully overcame 
the difficulties of preparing and spinning alpaca wool and 
combining it with cotton warp. As we have seen, he took 
advantage of the transition of the Bradford trade from 
worsted to cotton warps. At one time Sir Titus Salt was the 
only spinner of Alpaca weft in Bradford. With the intro- 
duction of alpacas, the trade in cotton-warp fabrics was 
fully established. Spinners left off spinning worsted warps, 
and the trade almost entirely changed from "all-wool," to 
" mixed " goods of cotton and worsted. 

Meanwhile the French manufacturers never entered into 
competition with the Bradford people on mixed goods, but 
kept on steadily improving and cheapening the production 
of all-wool materials. They had faith in the soft goods. 
The jurors in their report on worsted stuffs in the Exposi- 
tion of 1851 admitted the softness and brilliancy of the al- 
^ica and mohair manufactures carried on at Bradford and 
Uugley, and the superiority of all their combinations of 
70o\ and cotton; but while leaving Bradford the enjoyment 
)f this new industry, the Continent remained loyal to all- 
wool fabrics, maintaining their superiority in these. Every- 
thing went along swimmingly in Bradford, while the Brad- 
f ordians were making one material and the French another. 
At first Bradford aimed to make high -class imitations of 
silk. By reason of novelty these goods at first commanded 
a large sale. But as these goods lost their hold on the pop- 



BRADFOBD— DECLINE OF THE WORSTED TRADE. 89 

ular taste Mr. Illing worth says the great aim seems to have 
been to make an imitation of an imitation ; in other words, 
to run down prices. One firm produced an article, say, for 
7d. a yard ; he was at once echpsed by another producing 
an imitation at 5d. ; while he in turn would find an ingen- 
ious imitator at 3id. 

The trade naturally deteriorated, and the tremendous 
increase in production of the finer wools in South America 
and Australia, combined with the great improvements in 
machinery and the cheapness of Continental labor, had a 
constant tendency to cheapen the genuine article, until to- 
day all-wool fabrics, which fifty years ago could only be 
made of harsh English wool for the lowest and medium 
prices, and which were coarse and unsightly, can now be 
made of fine, soft-textured wools at vastly lower prices. 
Says Mr. Illingworth: "There is nothing new in the so- 
called change of taste ; the taste of to-day is the confirma- 
tion of the taste of the first thirty-five years of the cen 
tury." The real truth about the decHne of trade in Brad- 
ford is that Bradford is not making the kind of goods the 
pubHc wants ; it has not been long-sighted enough in watch- 
ing the great change in the world's supply of wool; it 
changed from worsted to cotton warps, and burned the 
bridge that had carried it to prosperity in the early part of 
the present century. On the other hand, its successful Con- 
tinental competitors owe their success and prosperity to 
their steadfast allegiance to all-wool fabrications. There is 
but one course open to Bradford, and that, in my opinion, 
is a return to the trade of 1835. It is no use, Micawber- 
like, to wait for something to turn up— to hope for a 
change in fashion. Fashion is too fickle a dame to in- 
trust with a great industry. The staple article of Bradford 
should be an "all-wool" fabric. That will last as long as 
the world lasts. Change of fashion can be provided for, as 
I have clearly shown in my history of the Paisley trade, 
but a decided departure from fundamental principles, like 
that which Bradford made half a century ago, is sure to end 



90 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

disastrously. It may be that Bradford will never regain 
the '' all-wool " trade. With proper protection to make up 
for the difference in the price of labor, these goods will un- 
doubtedly be made in the United States, and now that the 
ingenuity, industry, and thrift of New England are turned 
in this direction, there may be no opportunity for Bradford 
to extend its foreign trade, though with prompt and decided 
steps, and with Yorkshire economy and enterprise, it may 
be able to hold its home trade against the cheaper labor of 
the Continent. 



XXV. 

Migration of the Worsted Trade. 

Worsted stuff manufactured in England, according to 
the census of 1881, gives employment in round figures to 100- 
000 persons, of which number 64,000 are females and 36,000 
males, bo concentrated is this industry since its migration 
from Norfolk to Yorkshire, that nearly 96,000 out of the 
100,000 employed are returned as in the West Eiding of 
Yorkshire, and over 30,000 as employed in the city from 
which I write. In the United States the census of 1880 
gives less than 19,000 employed in this industry, and owing 
to the adverse changes in the tariff laws of 1883, it is proba- 
ble that the present number employed is less rather than 
more. Bradford, Halifax, and Keighley, and some other 
towns of minor importance, are the present seats of the 
worsted trade of Great Britain. One of the principal rea- 
sons for the migration of the worsted trade from the eastern 
counties to the North of England was the cheapness of 
labor. Norwich had from an early period enjoyed, almost 
without competition, the benefit of the fabrication of stuffs, 
and the workmen of that city, intelligent and full of spirit, 
obtained high wages, fared as operatives luxuriously, and 



OLD-TIME YORKSHIRE, 91 

as a consequence were often insubordinate and "struck" 
for higher remuneration. The history of Norwich is blotted 
with the mutinies and strikes of refractory weavers. The 
Yorkshireman was an honest plodder ; he lived largely upon 
oatmeal porridge, oatbread and milk, and in his frugality 
was not unlike his Scotch brother over the border. 
Thoresby, who lived in the last century, described the mas- 
ter Yorkshire workman of his day as a man of untiring 
energy and saving habits ; their ^ ' whole air seemed to be 
the honest gaining of money." As an example of their 
thriftiness, he narrates that the refreshments given by inn- 
keepers to the clothiers who, from Bradforddale and other 
quarters, frequented Leeds market, consisted of a '^pot of 
ale, a noggin of porridge, and a trencher of boiled or roast 
beef, the charge for which amounted to 2 pence." An inex- 
spensive mode of existence, coupled with unceasing atten- 
tion to business, laid the foimdation of the worsted trade in 
this part of England, 



XXVI. 

Old-time Yorkshire. 

Here is a description of the Bradford manufacturer of 
the eighteenth century: They rode betimes, and after a 
breakfast of porridge and milk betook themselves to the 
business of the day. Precisely at noon they dined — from 
Martinmas to Pasch, mostly on salted beeves, which gener- 
ated the scurvy, a prevalent and frightful complaint in 
those days, and instead of the modern luxury of tea they 
partook in the afternoon of cold meat and bread, washing 
the repast down with copious draughts of ale. This was 
called, as it is to the present day in Bradford, ^'the drink- 
ing." Yorkshire ale in those days was proverbial for its 
excellence, and the practice of home-brewing was then, as it 



92 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

is now, commoner in this district than in any other in Eng- 
land. The descendants of these frugal, hard-working, 
money-loving man hve in costly homes, in the environs of 
Bradford, and enjoy more luxuries than their ancestors did; 
but, for all that, they inherit many of the old characteristics 
of old-time Bradfordians. First, perhaps, in their never- 
failing attention to business. I have seen in one large mill 
in Bradford three generations of one family at work. The 
head of the house, with white hair and the weight of more 
than three-score years and ten upon his shoulders, bending 
feebly over his desk ; the son, already past the prime of life, 
iron-gray, with steady hand and clear head, in the counting- 
room, the real manager of the concern; the grandson, a 
young man of four or five and twenty, with blue, apron- 
hke overalls, busy in the combing or spinning department, 
thoroughly conversant with all the details of the business, 
contented to be what his father and grandfather, and not 
unhkely his great-grandfather, were, — namely, manufact- 
urers of worsted stuff. In New England too often we find 
the sons of manufacturers feeling after something else, the 
professions, perhaps, and leaving the mill or the sbop to 
the **old gentleman," or perhaps a manager. While the 
average Yorkshireman is not quite so penurious as the 
average Scotchman, he is thrifty to the last degree. You 
see him carefully counting every item in his hotel bill or his 
lunch ticket. He inquires the cost of everything he buys, 
and brings the habits of the counting-house or factory into 
every transaction of life. It is this practice of the strictest 
economy in all directions, and incessant personal supervision 
of their factories, combined with low wages, that enable 
the Bradford manufacturers to produce goods so cheaply. 

This closeness, hoAvever, together with a hatred for new 
methods, has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. 
It nearly lost Bradford the all-wool dress-goods trade a few 
years ago. First the fashion changed in favor of the French 
goods. The French excel, especially in high-priced goods. 
Long experience, careful scientific training of managers, 



OLD-TIME YORKSHIRE. 93 

overlookers, and responsible men, enable the factories of 
Koubaix, Lille, Eheims, etc., to produce a constant succes- 
sion of novelties in endless variety, so that every customer 
can have a distinct style of his own. Some of the enter- 
prising and public -spirited citizens of Bradford, like Henry 
Mitchell, W. H. Shepherd, and others, saw at once that 
unless something was done in the way of technical instruc- 
tion the all-wool dress-goods trade would be lost to the 
town. A technical school of instruction modeled after the 
Continental schools was proposed. The apathy of the 
typical, red-faced, broad-fisted, money-making Bradford 
manufacturer was about what one would expect. I have 
the word of Mr. Mitchell for it, that a greater number of 
them took no interest in it. They argued that as the large 
trade had developed under the old system they had better 
keep to their "traditions" and go on as they had done 
before, relying on the "rule of thumb," on energy, and on 
industry. Others declared that the Technical School would 
train a considerable number of young men, who would go 
to America and other t^ountries, and those countries would 
get the benefit. Others were afraid that it would raise up a 
superior body of men, both as managers, overlookers, and 
manufacturers, and result in keener home competition. 
Had it not been for a few broad-minded and determined 
men, the i^roject for this important school, w^hich will be of 
incalculable benefit to the industries of Bradford, would 
have fallen an early victim to a short-sighted policy — prev- 
alent among a class of manufacturers who have not yet 
learned the value of scientific training in the production of 
textiles. 



94 BEE AD -WINNERS ABROAD, 

XXVII. 

Mr. Henry Mitchell. 

Mr. Henry Mitchell, for the last thirty years merchant 
and distributor of worsted goods, and a man intellectually 
far above the average Bradford manufacturer, was the 
prime mover in establishing the Technical School here. 
Through the politeness of the Hon. Wilham F. Grinnell, 
United States Consul at Bradford, I was introduced to Mr. 
Mitchell, and during my stay met him several times. 

^^ Formerly," said Mr. Mitchell, '^nearly the whole pro- 
ductions of Bradford consisted purely of worsted fabrics. 
Now cotton -warp goods, silk, alpaca, mohair, and Indian 
fiber are all materials largely used." 

Mr. Mitchell was once a weaver himself, and is, I think, 
rather proud of the fact. 

^'What are some of the changes," I said, ^'that have 
taken place in the Bradford district since you have known 
it?" 

'' Formerly all the combing was done by hand and most 
of the weaving; that is, within my recollection. When I 
was a weaver, the speed of our power looms was about 90; 
now I think it is generally about 170 or 180 picks per min- 
ute." 

*' What is the present condition of the Bradford trade?" 

*' During the ten years ending in 1882 there has been con- 
siderable falling-off in production. Change in fashion, the 
enormous increase in production abroad, in the United 
States and other countries which were formerly dependent 
upon us for supplies, have had much to do with this." 

*^ Are these countries supplying themselves now ?" 

*' To a very large extent they are." 

^'Has the manufacture of wool and worsted of France 
and the Continent generally, increased as rapidly as that of 
England?" 



BRADFORD SOCIETY AND WAGES. 95 

**I should say more so; during the last twenty years the 
increase in France has been greater than in England." 

Mr. Mitchell furthermore admitted that he thought in the 
New England States the operatives in this industry were 
better educated than in Bradford, though he could not say 
that of the Western and Southern States. Most of the 
machinery engaged in the worsted trade in the United 
States, Mr. Mitchell contends, comes from England, and the 
managers of mills, work-shops, and dye-works have also 
been obtained from England. Some of the students from 
the Technical School at Bradford have also left and gone to 
America, and have taken very responsible positions there, 
while they have constant applications for others to fill simi- 
lar positions. The variety of the materials used in Bradford 
is large, and the materials are manufactured in an infinite 
variety of ways, both for women's dresses and for men's 
wear, so they have greater scope than any other branch of 
the textile industry. While Bradford can beat the French 
in the dyeing of mixed fabrics, and especially in the luster 
fabrics, in the all- wool and high-class goods France excels 
Bradford. Moreover, the designs generally come from 
France. And they are not always original designs for 
worsted goods. The worsted trade copy silk to a considerable 
extent. If, for instance, the silk manufacturers of Lyons 
bring out any particular kind of check goods or figured de- 
signs they are copied for next season in wool fabrics. 



XXYIII. 

Bradford SocnsTY and Wages. 

I HAVE but little space to give to Bradford. The town it- 
self lies in a valley, This valley, stretching from the moor- 
lands above Aire at Shipley, forms at Bradford a considera- 
ble bend, and, being at this point joined by two small dells, 



96 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

the town appears to be seated at the junction of four val- 
leys. The surrounding landscape is picturesque. The town 
always seems to be bathed in rain or mist. It has a reddish 
brown appearance, owing to the color of the stone found in 
the vicinity and used largely in building. The shop win- 
dows are bright and fascinating to those like myself who 
love display of beautiful textile goods. The people as a rule 
are civil but suspicious of Americans. There is a constant 
undercurrent of uneasiness lest you may be a manufactu- 
rer, a designer, or an inventor in disguise. Though a place 
of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, there is no intellectual society. 
The average manufacturer is more interested in his house 
a race, a cricket match, or a football match than in music, 
or science or art. Hardly any of the manufacturers take 
any interest in the School of Technology. To be sure, they 
have annual town concerts, patronized by the honorable 
mayor, where the bosoms of the wealthy Bradfordians go 
to display the family jewels, and at which the Bradfordian 
himself will probably sit next to his wife with his hat on. 

Another idiosyncrasy of the Yorkshire man is betting. 
Manufacturers and workmen alike indulge in wagering, 
and a race of any kind or foot-ball match will draw a crowd, 
no matter how depressed the times. Wages are recklessly 
squandered in betting and drinking on these occasions, and 
the natural consequences (to the workingman) are hunger 
and want at home for a long time afterward. The dialect 
of the Bradford working class " I feear is noan so eesay to 
leearn," so we will pass over that and try to ascertain some- 
thing of the working classes, their homes, their manners of 
living, and their wages, and furthermore compare their 
wages with the earnings of hands engaged in similar occu- 
pations in our own country. We have seen by the census 
figures that nearly two-thirds of the total number engaged 
in the manufacture of worsted stuffs are females. In esti- 
mating the wages this is an important fact to bear in mind. 
Bradford probably has fewer really wretched tenement- 
houses than any town of its size in the kingdom. The work 



BBADFORD SOCIETY AND WAGES, 



97 



people are very well housed, and, as English wages go, earn 
at the present moment good wages. A glance at the follow- 
ing table will indicate what those wages are : 



Weekl 
Description of Labor. Wages. 

Wool-sorters $ 7 17 

Wool-sorters (boys) 3 04 

Washers (foreman). ...... 4 86 

Assistant washers 4 38 

Dyers 3 71 

Overseers ,. . 11 20 

Carding overseers 8 14 

Combing overseers 7 30 

Carders (men) 4 01 

Carders (women) 2 43 



Weekly 
Description of Labor. Wages. 

Backmas-winders $4 62 

Card-jobbers 4 62 

Card-grinders 5 34 

Combers. 3 65 

Combers (women) 2 79 

Box-winders 3 28 

Box-winders (women) 2 31 

Repairers 3 40 

Repairers (women) 2 67 

Finishers 2 49 



Here we have women working at this disagreeable work 
all the week for the meagre sum of $2.50. This may be said 
to be the average pay for women in this industry, as the above 
table is as near correct as it is possible to make such an ex- 
hibit, having been verified in every possible way. On the 
other hand, we find that with the single exception of wool- 
sorters, the average pay of men employed in this industry, 
excepting overseers, is less than $5 a week. The pay of 
overseers in the worsted industry in Massachusetts ranges 
from $15 to $38 a week, the average, I should say, not less 
than $21. Here the average would not be $10 per week. 
This, however, is not important. What do the vast body of 
the workers get? 

To begin, the average weekly pay of the best wool-sorters 
in the United States is from $12 to $21 per week. Over 100 
ordinary sorters were returned last year in statistics of 
labor as making from $10.44 to $11.04 a week. Eeturns were 
received by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics from 
4673 persons engaged in this industry, and it was found 
that the average pay for women in all branches was $6.10 
per week, more than double what a similar inquiry would 
show for Bradford. It was found that the average weekly 
wages paid to men was $9 a week. Could identically the 
7 



98 



BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 



same test be put to the wages of men in Bradford, the aver- 
age would not be over half. To make the test similar one 
must have the same number of returns, and must also as- 
certain the percentage of the several kinds of occupations 
to the personnel of the mill or factory. Leaving foremen 
and overseers out of the question— always a confusing ele- 
ment, for some foremen may be cheap at $30 a week and 
others dear at $15 — let us glance at the average pay of Brad- 
ford women in the spinning and manufacturing depart- 
ments: 



Weekly 
Description of Labor. Wages. 

Drawers , $2 25 

Spinners 2 43 

Warpers 2 16 

Duffers (gh'ls) 2 19 

Duffers (twisting) 2 00 

Twisters 2 31 



Weekly 
Description of Labor. Wages^ 

Winders $2 93 

Reelers 3 52 

Weavers (coabinge) 4 38 

Weavers (dress goods) 3 52 

Finishers (girls) 2 19 

Doublers (girls) 2 43 



This brings us back to our average of about $2.50 a week. 
Let any American manufacturer of worsted stuffs take his 
pencil and see what he has paid out for salaries in the above 
branches of the work, which combined form numerically 
probably nine-tenths of the salary Hst of the spinning and 
weaving departments, and he will find that he has paid out 
on the average not less than $5.50 per week (more than 
double), and probably about $6. Nearly two-thirds of the 
operatives in this industry are women . Again, in the dyeing 
departments I am inclined to think, after a very careful in- 
quiry, that the American manufacturer would find his ex- 
penditure for wages doubled. From $9 to $21 per week is 
about the range for ordinary dyers. In Bradford the labor- 
ers in the dye-houses get about $5 per week. The foreman of 
the Crabb House will average $11, say, of the gray-room less 
than $8; single room, $9.75; dolly-room, $8.75; fentering- 
room, $9.25 ; drying-room, $7.50. All this grade of men will 
make about $18 a week in the United States. In Bradford 
color-dyers are paid the highest, the wages ranging from 



BBADFORD SOCIETY AND WAGES. 99 

$7.50 to as high as $38 r but this latter price is for an excep- 
tionally skilled man. 

And now a word in conclusion about the homes and gen- 
eral condition of the working classes of Bradford. For 
England it is exceptionally good. The average pay for fe- 
male operatives in Bradford is about $2.50 per week. Lodg- 
ing, with board, Consul G-rinnell in his exceedingly able 
report to the State Department tells us, is 12s. 6d. ($3.04) per 
week. It is evident, therefore, that these girls do not main- 
tain themselves as so many do in New England. There are 
no boarding-houses of the description we so often find in 
the textile districts of the United States. The fact is that 
the wages of a majority of the male operatives are so 
meagre that it becomes almost necessary that one or more 
of the female members of the household find employment 
in the mills. The average rent for small four-room cottages 
is $1.10 per week; six-room houses, $1.60 per week. As the 
income of a vast majority of the men working in the tex- 
tile trades will not average the year around more than $5 
per week, and certainly will not exceed $6, except in excep- 
tional cases, the $2.50 which the women can bring to the 
family really enables the family to provide for their actual 
wants. This can be done for $7.50 per week, but it allows 
nothing for the public -house, for betting, for races, for foot- 
ball matches. Many of the Bradford workmen, and they 
are no worse than those of the Yorkshire towns, and not so 
bad as the cutlers of Sheffield, spend in this way the few 
shiUings that, if properly laid out, would convert a home of 
discomforts to one of simple comforts. Nor is the fault 
wholly the man's. 

Of Enghsh factory women as wives I have a poor opinion. 
They are not educated ; they work in factories up to the 
tune of marriage ; they learn very little of household work, 
and when they marry and set up house many of them have 
no notion how to make their husbands comfortable or to 
make ends meet. In Bradford, if any one will take the 
trouble to call around among the working classes, may be 



100 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

found hundreds of homes all in a muddle. Untidiness, 
squalor, poor cooking, and general bad management are not 
likely to tempt husbands from the public-houses. The wife 
is an element too often left out in discussing the wage ques- 
tion. I have seen neat, tidy little homes right here in Brad- 
ford, and the income not more than $6 a week. But these 
are exceptions in the textile regions. The demand for 
woman in the mills lessens her usefulness as mother and 
wife. There is a good deal of fustian and cheap after-dinner 
talk about the amelioration of the condition of the working- 
man by education, clubs, coffee-taverns, free libraries, the 
ballot, etc. So far this is mere surface work in England. 
The masses of toilers who work year after year for $200 and 
$250 per year— and there are millions in England doing this 
— are not reached at all. They are as badly off as ever they 
were. Literally, they have no hope ! No future ! Sickness, 
loss of work, or any accident, leaves them penniless and in 
want. You will probably see less of real want in Bradford 
at the present time than in any other town of its size and im- 
portance in the kingdom. Yet the average condition of the 
working classes will not compare for a monient with some 
of our New England towns engaged in similar pursuits. 
And it is this we want to guard against. 

Even if wages in some branches of this industry are not 
twice as much in the United States as they are in England, 
we must remember that every reduction of duty does one 
of two things — makes idlers of a part of the 19,000 now en- 
gaged in the industry at home, or brings down the wages of 
those employed nearer the British standard. It also lessens 
our chances for the establishment of an industry which, 
next to the French, our people are peculiarly qualified to 
carry on successfully. Can any one read of the great prog- 
ress we have made in the manufacture of silk, and not feel 
that we are neglecting our opportunities in the higher grades 
of worsted goods? As I have shown, the Bradford people 
are instinctively afraid of Americans. Lester keeps his 
velvet and plush mill at Maningham closed tightly against 



MANINGHAM AND SALTAIRE. IQl 

all Americans. The doors of other factories are opened 
cautiously enough, and then only half way. In spun silk 
we are doing all that is being done in Europe, and with a 
bold, decided policy we have the skill, the capital, and the 
right men to do equally well in the manipulation of all the 
materials used in Bradford. A reduction of the tariff on 
the finer grades of goods will lead in the opposite direction. 



XXIX. 

Maningham and Saltaire— An Affable Silk-Mantjfac- 

TURER. 

During a stay here of a week, I have visited many of the 
principal mills. I owe it to the citizens of Bradford to say 
that nowhere have I been more cordially received— the 
town officers, the Board of Trade, the Price Hall, the Police 
Department, the clubs, the libraries, and the great mills 
have aU been open to me, and every facility afforded for 
the prosecution of my inquiry. Prominent citizens have 
taken pains to give me any information in their power, and 
I am especially indebted to Mr. W. F. Grinnell, the efficient 
United States Consul, who has assisted me in every possi- 
ble way. My first visit was to Sir Titus Salt's town on the 
Biver Aire, called Saltaire. Sir Titus tried to do here what 
Pullman has far more successfully accomplished near 
Chicago. After dwelling in smoking manufacturing towns 
for the past six weeks, it was refreshing to see this neatly 
built Little town in the midst of green fields of a cheerful 
country landscape, which contrasted favorably with the 
light-colored stone buildings and cleanly thoroughfares of 
Saltaire. The works are fine specimens of architecture, 
and cover ten or twelve acres. They are both substantial 
and elegant — a rare combination in English mills. They 
accommodate about four thousand hands, who find homes 



102 BBEAD-WINNEBS ABROAD. 

in about eight hundred cottages built on a uniform plan in 
rows, conveying at once the idea of neatness and monotony. 
These dwellings are larger than those occupied by the Brad- 
ford operatives, having five rooms. The backs of the 
premises are inclosed by brick walls. The sanitary arrange- 
ments are said to be good. Provision has been made for 
the education and amusement as well as for the spiritual 
welfare of the people, in the erection of several churches, 
institutions, and schools. Baths encourage cleanhness, 
parks afford opportunity for healthy exercise, the suppres- 
sion of beer- shops minimizes drunkenness, and alms-houses, 
an inevitable element of English civilization, open their 
cheerful doors for the aged and incapable. Cozy as the 
cottages are, clean as the streets are, handsome as the fac- 
tory building is, there pervades all Saltaire an air of re- 
straint about the people and a want of individuality that 
shows the folly of trying to make human beings like so 
many peas in a pod. 

The gigantic silk manufactory of S. 0. Lister at Maning- 
ham, about a couple of miles from the center of Bradford, 
is one of the most interesting places to a stranger. Mr. 
Lister is the inventor of a combing-machine that, I am told, 
revolutionized silk manufacturing. In spool silk Lister 
ranks with Coates and Clark in spool cotton, but, in addi- 
tion to this, he has become famous in dress goods, plushes, 
and velvet. He is one of the few men in this world who 
have lived to see a magnificent monument, heroic size, 
erected to his own genius and public spirit. Bradford peo- 
ple believe in honoring their benefactors, as the statute of 
S. C. Lister in the Park and that of Sir Titus Salt near the 
Town Hall bear evidence. 

Mr. Lister I found to be an exceedingly affable and able 
man. He is past sixty, with large brown eyes, gray hair 
and beard, plainly attired, evidently a good diner and in 
teresting companion. He greets strangers very cordially 
and gives a hearty laugh to emphasize his remarks. 

^' Ah," said he, *' it is the foreign tariffs that have played 



MANINQHAM AND SALTAIBE. 103 

the mischief with us here. It is well enough to attribute it 
to this, that and the other, you know, but the foreign 
tariffs are at the bottom of it. We Enghsh have been 
guilty of great mistakes. We didn't know when we had a 
good thing. In 1852, at the great Exhibition, we played 
the part of the crow in ^sop's fables to you Yankee foxes. 
What a beautiful bird ! you exclaimed, and the oily-tongued 
Frenchman echoed it. What would we not give to hear 
you sing, for a bird with such plumage must have an ex- 
quisite voice ! And, thus flattered, we began to sing and out 
dropped the meat. Then the Yankee and the Frenchman 
ran off with our machinery and our ideas, clapped on a 
tariff, and soon settled our business — haw! haw! haw!" 

And Mr. Lister leaned back in his chair and laughed, as 
the aptness of the comparison dawned upon him. Then he 
resumed : 

*' Yes, you shall go all over the mill; glad to let you go 
you know, providing you are not a manufacturer. Yes, 
you may go over, but not into the velvet department; 
couldn't do that; no one admitted into that department; 
not the velvet department— haw ! haw ! haw !" 

And Mr. Lister again laughed louder than before. 

So I was piloted over the mill by a red faced young man 
with black whiskers, but not into the velvet department. 
It was a sight long to be remembered, to watch the silk, 
from the boiling in strong little bags, through the various 
processes to the final weaving into dresses of the most deh- 
cate shades. How attractive the weaving-room! Every 
loom engaged in a different shade of silk, and the Hghtest 
hues of blue and pink rattling through the dusty ma- 
chinery, without a flaw, without a spot. After the boiling 
and dyeing comes the combing ; then the drawing into end- 
less skeins which sOently take their place in tin cylindrical 
receptacles ; then the spinning into yarns of every number, 
and the twisting into spool silk. I noticed that the ma- 
chinery is aU made on the premises and everything kept 
close. The factory people, who hve in comfortable houses 



104 BEEAD-WINNEBS ABROAD. 

near the mill, seem contented and thrifty. The silk weav- 
ers are a better class of girls than those engaged in the 
worsted mills, and earn more money. Each family pays 
about 4s. 6d. or 4s. 9d. a week rent. Their houses each con- 
tain one general room, two bedrooms, and a garret. The 
floor of the lower room is paved with stone flags, in most 
cases partly covered by a rug, which can be taken up 
*^wash days." Many of the rooms are cozy, with a well- 
blacked grate, white hearth, cheerful blazing fire, green or 
straw-colored Venetian blinds, mahogany furniture covered 
with horse-hair cloth, plenty of shells and cheap glass orna- 
ments, and a profusion of antimacassars. I called at a 
score or so of these cottages and talked with the pleasant 
old Yorkshire dames who kept house while husband and 
daughters were at work. Some were making, all told, 30s. 
a week by the united efforts of husband and daughters; 
others only 22s. They never owned a home, and never 
expected to. All had heard of the land beyond the seas, 
and one or two had relatives who had gone out and done 
well. They complained very much of the high price of pro- 
visions in England. Of course those engaged in Lister's 
mills are a superior class of operatives. The houses in the 
other divisions of the city were not so good, and the inte- 
riors did not present the same comfortable appearance. 
The inmates of the latter complained of the dullness of 
trade, of their meagre, almost starvation earnings, and 
longed for something better. 

*'By strict economy," said one, *'we are able to get 
enough to live upon, but saving is almost an impossibihty 
unless there are at least three wage-earners in the family." 

In such cases the girls were able to dress respectably and 
the family to live more comfortably. 

I am glad to say there are no tenement-houses in Brad- 
ford. They are not allowed by the city, and as a result 
every family has its own cottage. In this respect, as well 
as in some others, it is far in advance of nearly all large 
English manufacturing towns. A couple of ' ' Model Lodg- 



THE SHADY SIDE OF BRADFOBD. 105 

ing-houses" provided for many who have no homes, and 
these unfortunate people are allowed a night's lodging and 
the privilege of the kitchen to cook their frugal meal, for 
4d. or 6d. The '* fourpenny beds" are in the common room; 
the "sixpenny beds" include the luxury of a room to your- 
self. I looked in one evening and found that fifty or sixty 
old fellows, some with their wives, had availed themselves 
of the ''Model Lodging-house." The next step would be 
the workhouse. 



XXX. 

The Shady SmE of Bradford. 

At night, accompanied by Inspector Dobson, of the Brad- 
ford police force, who was deputed by Chief Constable 
Withers to "^show me the city," I took a dip into the shady 
side of Bradford life. We went through the lowest quarters 
of the city, mostly occupied by the Irish, the inspector said, 
and dropped into the worst of the public-houses. In one of 
them we discovered about twenty women in a maudlin state 
of drunkenness, some of them leaning against the pewter- 
covered counter, affectionately hugging their beer mugs. 
They were wrangling with about half a score sottish-look- 
ing laborers, but the Inspector said probably none of them 
were miU hands. They did not strike me as a particularly 
vicious set. The Inspector pointed out in this locality the 
house, now vacant, where the last Bradford murder was 
committed. The streets were dark but well paved, and the 
police have things well in hand. Display of immorality on 
the street, such as that in London, is unknown, and there 
are few brothels in the town, the police knowing the names 
of the keepers and of the inmates of every one, which record 
is revised every year. Drunkenness is more under control 
here than in any city I have yet visited, and is gradually 



106 BBEAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

decreasing. The coffee-houses vie successfully with the gin- 
shops in lavish display of gilt letters, glaring Kghts, stained 
glass and polished brass. 

Said a publican: **The coffee-houses is playing the d— I 
with our trade, sir." 

In 1865 the number of arrests for drunkenness in Bradford 
was 1,053; in 1881 only 346. This is very small for a town 
of its size, and only exceeds by 50 the number convicted the 
same year in Dewsbury (30,000 population). Yet one need 
not go thirsty in Bradford. The licensing district contains 
194,000 inhabitants and glories in 1,219 licensed houses, one 
for each 159 persons. The condition of the people is far bet- 
ter here than in Dundee or Coatbridge. 

What are called the '* Gladstone groggeries" are consid- 
ered the greatest evil in Bradford, and next to the coffee- 
houses are injuring the trade of the public-houses and beer- 
shops. They are so-called because that eminent statesman 
first licensed them. They are little tallow-chandler's shops, 
and ^^ one-horse groceries," licensed to sell liquor ^^ not to be 
drunk on the premises." The result is that people with 
running accounts at those groceries are tempted to drink at 
home, and women who would not go openly to the *' Pub." 
buy their liquors under the disguise of groceries. Upon the 
whole, though the police of Bradford think they have min- 
imized crime and drunkenness, during the last decade— for 
all that, the good old Bradford people, who centuries ago 
shut up the bar-shops and put the loafers to work, are not 
satisfied. 

*^ I don't know," said Inspector Dobson, with a sigh, *^ what 
more we can do, unless we make a chapel of the place." 

In the amusement line, Bradford is ingeniously dull, but 
not vicious. There are two music-halls, both of which I 
visited. The lowest might be called a variety show with the 
edge off, for the Salvation Army occupy the upper hall in 
the same building, offsetting by their pious hymns the 
ribaldry below. It was the benefit night of the "' Old Favor- 
ite," said the '* dodger" which announced as a biU of the 



THE SHADY SIDE OF BRADFORD, 107 

play ^^Adalzon." The inducement beside the young lady 
in question was a " legitimate give-away," not in the Ameri- 
can slang sense, but in earnest. The prizes to be distributed 
were substantial Bradford-made furniture, consisting of 
*' splendid maple cane-seated chairs," "' a large center-table," 
*'a handsome cradle," *^a nice iron bedstead," "a good, 
useful dolly tub and dolly" (is it necessary for me to say 
this is what the English housewife does her washing in ?) *^ a 
useful fender," '^ a pretty washing-stand," and a number of 
other articles of household furniture. The place w^as suffo- 
catingly hot, and filled with rather a rough, but, upon the 
whole, decently behaved, audience. All the men smoked, 
mostly pipes, and drinks were being sold to men and women 
alike, amid the singing of the '' Favorite" and the clanging 
and twanging and toothing of a poor orchestra. At the 
second place I visited the ^*Two Orphans" was being per- 
formed to a thin house ; admission, 6d and 3d. The audi- 
ence were mostly mill hands. 

At the "Theater Royal, Bradford," was one of those 
wretched Enghsh pantomimes ' ' Sindbad the Sailor. " These 
horrible combinations of insipid wit and doggerel, tin 
helmets and spangles, colored fire and scenic effects, stale 
airs and atrocious singing, flavored throughout with a dis- 
play of jingoism and — no tights, have so far haunted me in 
every town. I have already seen "Eobinson Crusoe" in 
York, " Eobinson Crusoe" in Wakefield, " Robinson Crusoe" 
in Glasgow, "Robinson Crusoe" in Liverpool, "Robinson 
Crusoe" in Leeds, until I began to think the British public 
had gone Robinson Crusoe mad. This was " Sindbad," so I 
went, glad to exchange Defoe's modern adventure for the 
ancient mariner of the ''Arabian Nights." I first elbowed 
my way into the pit, which was jammed to the doors, with 
respectible mechanics and their families and factory girls 
with their sweethearts. From there I ascended to the ' ' dress 
circle," and "upper boxes," and found that they contained 
the shop-keepers and the business people of the town, who 
listened attentively to the balderdash, laughed heartily at 



108 BREAD ^WINNERS ABROAD. 

the coarsest and stalest jokes, and joined with the ^'gods" 
and the pit in applauding the jingo sentiments, which this 
year of course turn on the *' Brilliant Egyptian Campaign,'' 
"The Gallant Sir Garnet," and such lines as "Stand, boys, 
stand steady and true," for to "fight for old England is the 
proper thing to do." 

One night during my stay in the city I was invited to 
attend the annual subscription concert of St. George's Hall, 
which, by the way, is one of the largest in the kingdom. Here 
you see the wealth and beauty of the town. The hall was 
filled with a brilliant audience, mostly ladies, who, of course, 
appeared, as did the gentlemen, in evening dress. Brad- 
f ordians have always been noted for their love of music, and 
the concert, v/hich was excellent, was listened to with 
marked attention. 

I have no space to describe the worsted mills and other 
large factories which I have visited. They are certainly on 
an immense scale. No place in the world can make woolen 
yarn as Bradford can, and even the Continental countries 
have to buy Bradford yarn to weave into the fine French 
goods. One of the saddest sights was the scene of the late 
disaster. The falling chimney (over 300 feet high) had 
smashed in the adjoining mill as though it were a house 
built with cards. As I walked through the yards, which 
have now been cleared, the sorrow-stricken faces and swollen 
eyes of the old teamsters and yard hands told the story that 
they had lost a daughter or a son whose young life had been 
crushed out in the fearful catastrophe. 

In this letter and in one that preceded it I have endeav- 
ored to picture to the reader what may now even be 
called busy Bradford. If I were asked what the keen, prac- 
tical Bradford manufacturer thought on economic ques- 
tions, I should frankly reply that after an experience of a 
generation some of them are prepared to prove that tariff 
duties come more largely out of the producer than the con- 
sumer. Some of them demonstrated this quite conclusively 
to me and illustrated it with the French tariff. One of the 



HALIFAX— DARK DEEDS, 109 

most prominent, whose name would be known in the States 
did I feel at liberty to mention it, said : 

'' The truth is, the higher the foreign tariff the lower we 
must make our goods and the less we can afford to pay labor. 
The least possible reduction in the United States tariff will 
be a grand thing for Bradford, but how it will affect your 
industries I can hardly say. We are obliged to sell our 
goods in France for the same price as we did before they 
enacted their higher tariff, and^the Bradford manufacturer is 
paying that duty, not the French consumers of the goods, I 
know from practical experience what I am talking about, 
and I often tell my friends, the professors, if they would 
only come here to Bradford and stay for twelve months and 
look into the practical working of their pet theories, they 
might modify them somewhat. England can no longer con- 
trol the markets of the world, nor can she convert the world 
to free trade. Some still cling to the hope that this will be 
done, but the sooner they get rid of these false notions the 
better, in my opinion. Trade problems can only be adjusted 
in a common-sense, practical way." 

These are not uncommon sentiments in the clubs and bus- 
iness places of Bradford, though, of course, most of the good 
people remain loyal to the Manchester school ; but even they 
will grumble at times and mutter, "How would the United 
States like to have its corn taxed ?" 



XXXI. 

Halifax— Dark Deeds. 

Halifax has been a famous town for ages. Camden 
" most reverend head," said in his day that it had not this 
name many centuries, being once called Horton. The name 
was changed through the villany of a priest, who, becoming 
enamoured of a beautiful Horton girl (Halifax to this day is 



110 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

noted for pretty faces), but finding her impervious to his 
blandishments, cut off her head and hung it on a yew tree. 
The head grew to the tree, and many people visited the spot, 
and each person pulled off some twigs of the tree. The 
tree, stripped of its branches, seems to have maintained its 
reputation for sanctity among the credulous, and the vulgar 
fancied that the little veins spreading like threads of hair be- 
tween the bark and body of the yew tree were the mur- 
dered maiden's identical hairs. A pilgrimage was started 
to the place, and such a concourse came that the village of 
Horton grew into a large town and took the name of Haliz- 
Foex, or Halifax — signifying Holy-Hair. The town clerk 
of Halifax told me that until recently the seal of the town 
had for its device a bush with human hair growing from it, 
evidently referring to the tradition. Hahfax was once 
owned by the Warrens, and in an outburst of generosity 
one of their earls made it a present (in 1138) to the Abbey of 
Lewes. In a conversatien with the present Mayor, Mr. 
Nathan Whitley, I was told that Halifax was to-day the 
largest parish in the kingdom, a distinction that I find, by 
the way, by a reference to Camden, that it enjoyed centu- 
ries ago, when it was said that Halifax was more famous for 
the largeness of its parish than for having been the birth- 
place of Sacro Bosco, or for the effectual way it dealt with 
thieves, ^'having eleven chapels and about 12,000 souls, so 
that the inhabitants often say their parish maintains more 
men than any other kind of animals." I am not quite sure 
whether the use of the word ' ' animals " by Camden was not a 
dehcate sarcasm, for in their treatment of one another the 
ancient families of Halifax, *' who attended church regularly 
and answered the calls of the vicar," were more like wild 
animals than anything else. Indeed, Hull and Halifax have 
long been bracketed v/ith hell itself; Hull on account of its 
rigid discipline to beggars, for they whipped all the foreign 
poor, and then set the poor fellows to work; and Halifax 
for the wholesale manner in which they cut off the heads of 
thieves. Hence the old litany : 



HALIFAX— DARK DEEDS. \\\ 

From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, 
Good Lord deliver us. 

The early history of Halifax is sensational enough for the 
most sanguine appetites. In the present parish is Elland, a 
place noted for one of the most bloodthirsty exhibitions of 
passion and revenge recorded, and the seene of a famous 
*^ Ballad of Sir John Elland." The account of this tragedy 
is published in an old history of Halifax written over a cen- 
tury ago. It may be found in the appendix, and is thus an- 
noimced: 

Revenge on Revenge ; 

or a 

Historical Narrative of the Tragica 

Practices of Sir John 

Elland op Elland, 

Committed upon the Persons of 

Robert Beaumont and his 

Alliance in the reign 

Of Edward III., King of England. 

The story of this feud is briefly this : A man named 
Exley killed a relative of Elland, v^ho v^as High Sheriff of 
Yorkshire. To appease the righteous wrath of Elland, 
Exley gave him a piece of land. But Sir John was not sat- 
isfied and hungered for his life. Wherefore Exley fled to 
his relative and one of Sir John's neighbors, Sir Robert 
Beaumont, of Crosland HaU. Then Sir John called together 
the **men of Elland," and set off for blood. It was more 
convenient for Sir John to begin with some friend of the 
Beaumonts, so he dropped in, on his road to Crosland Hall, 
on the Quarmbys of Quarmby Hall, and on the Lockwoods 
of Lockwood;Hall, and, finding the owners in, he cut off their 
heads, and hurried on to the Beaumonts'. A drawbridge 
and a moat proved a temporary obstacle to the king's High 
Sheriff and the ''men of Elland," but after a short resist- 
ance they entered Sir Robert's bedchamber, and in fifteen 
minutes afterward Sir Robert's head lay in one part and his 



112 BBEAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

body in another of the dining-room floor. Sir John and his 
followers then took refreshments, ordering the best victuals 
and wine in the late Sir Robert's house, and generously in- 
vited the late knight's two sons to join in the carousal. The 
younger did, but the elder, Adam, declined to take part in 
the festivities, having lost his appetite. Sir John was as- 
tonished at this and remarked: ^'See how heinously that 
lad doth take his father's death, and looks with a frowning 
countenance, as if he were resolved to take revenge." 

Then we are told that the young Quarmbys and the 
young Lockwoods and the young Beaumonts went into train- 
ing, practicing in all those feats of arms and skill then in 
vogue. After fifteen years had elapsed they one day lay in 
wait for the fiery High Sheriff as he came from holding court, 
and, not knowing them. Sir John courteously ^'doffed his 
bonnet," whereupon the Beaumont party fell upon him and 
cut his head off. Determining to extirpate the name of El- 
land, they next waited on Sir John's son, and as he was 
coming from church with his family, the Beaumonts, the 
Lockwoods, and the Quarmbys sent an arrow through his 
head and through the heart of his little son, and there the 
male line of the EUands of EUand perished. Quarmby and 
Lockwood were afterward slain, but Beaumont escaped to 
Hungary. This little family feud illustrated the character 
of the old people of HaUf ax, and no wonder that from such 
beginnings the ** man folk " became strong in arms, not to 
say cruel in their treatment of criminals and even of one 
another. 

From Mayor Whitley I also obtained the history of the 
old ** Gibbet law." The leading woolen men of the town 
having loaned the king some money which the monarch 
was unable to return, obtained from him the right to deal 
with their own thieves. The result was that if a felon was 
taken with stolen goods on his person amounting to 13id., 
he was on conviction executed. Market days were set 
aside for these popular treats. The instrument by which 
these unhappy wretches were despatched still exists at Hali- 



HALIFAX— ITS DEPABTED GLORIES. 113 

fax, and there remains on Gibbet Hill a square platform of 
stone raised about four feet above the level of the ground, 
and thirteen feet broad, ascended by a flight of stone steps, 
on which were formerly placed two upright pieces of tim- 
ber fifteen feet high, joined by a cross-beam at the top; 
within these was a square block of wood with an ax at the 
lower end, the wood being worked with a rope and a pulley, 
the ax descending with great force upon the victim's throat. 
The city has fenced off what now remains of this survival 
of the earlier customs of Halifax, and the superintendent of 
the water-works, Mr. Lamber, takes great pleasure in 
showing the old stone platform, now moss-grown with age, 
to curious visitors to his works on Gibbet Hill. 



XXXII. 

Halifax— Its Departed Glories. 

The very earhest history of Halifax connects it with the 
worsted trade, and Camden said: '^ The industry of the in- 
habitants is also very surprising, who, possessing a soil 
which can scarcely maintain them at all, have carried on 
such a woolen manufacture, first established about seventy 
years ago, as to raise themselves great fortunes and bear 
the prize from all their neighbors." Thus wrote Camden in 
the sixteenth century. The woolen trade was first brought 
to Halifax from Eipon about the time of Henry Yl., and in 
1758 no less than thirty-four fulling-miUs were in this par- 
ish. 

To-day Halifax has about 75,500 inhabitants, and in 1848 
became a municipal borough; before that it was under the 
jurisdiction of the Duke of Leeds. It glories in a worship- 
ful Mayor and a fiiie Town Hall, which latter for size and 
beauty far exceeds that of Huddersfield. It can boast also 
of the tallest police force in the kingdom. The thirsty are 
8' 



114 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

quenched at 255 public-houses and beer-shops— one to 208 of 
the population. It has, I am sorry to say, a local debt of 
nearly $6,000,000. Halifax is to Bradford what Hudders- 
field is to Leeds, a sort of subdivision of the same trade, so 
that at the present trade is not brisk. But aside from the 
worsted trade proper, Halifax can boast of other important 
manufactures. It has one of the largest carpet manufac- 
tories in the empire, that of the Crossleys, employing 5,000 
hands. James Akroyd's worsted mills employ from 4,000 
to 5,000 hands when they are running at full force. Among 
the small trades are wire-making and card-making ; Hali- 
fax, it is said, being the original seat for the card trade of 
the whole country. I had the pleasure of meeting one 
gentleman in this trade who had a complete set of books 
reaching back nearly a century (1784). Window curtains, 
damasks, table covers, and army cloth are made in Halifax. 
In reply to a question about the trade prospects of the 
town the Mayor said : 

^'This district probably suffers more than any other on 
account of the excessive duties put on our goods by Ger- 
many and the United States. Under the tariff the United 
States has actually made all its own carpets ;" and the good 
Mayor of Halifax looked horrified as he contemplated this 
enormity on the part of the United States. 

The Mayor was a fine, fleshy-looking Englishman who 
would have looked well going in state to church in the days 
before the Municipal Eeform act swept away the old his- 
toric muniicipal charter. The town clerk was an affable 
little man in a dark brown wig, which was, perhaps, the 
most conspicuous part of him. The Mayor was an aggres- 
sive free trader, and he told me how, in a recent speech, he 
had vanquished a local Nestor who had not yet swept the 
cobwebs of protection from liis brains. 

*'The day the United States adopts free trade," said the 
Mayor, emphatically, ''Great Britain had better look out, 
for she will have a far more dangerous competitor." 

I said that was very true, because when the United States 



HALIFAX— ITS DEPARTED GLORIES. 115 

adopts free trade, she will be able to compete with the 
world, and it is not likely that free trade will be adopted 
before that time arrives. I also suggested that it was 
rather unseemly, not to say unpatriotic, if a system of free 
trade in the United States would prove disastrous to British 
interests, for the English press and English statesmen to so 
vigorously urge the policy upon us. 

The Mayor smiled faintly, and no doubt thought of the 
carpet and worsted trade of Halifax. Perhaps his mind re- 
verted to the days when proud Halifax ranked above Leeds 
and Bradford in the cloth trade, when the merchants of 
Leeds and of Bradford circled round Piece Hall, and when 
the merchant princes of Halifax gave great banquets in 
their handsome mansions, when the goods of Halifax were 
sent to Spain and Portugal and South America. These 
were the palmy days of Halifax, but now all this has 
changed. Huddersfield, then only a part of the old parish 
of Almondbury, has grown into a larger town— better 
streets, larger shops, more enterprise, and brighter pros- 
pects. But in the center of Halifax stands that enormous 
Piece Hall occupied only by hucksters, and once a week 
used as a market. Silent and gloomy, it looks like a huge 
industrial tombstone— a reminder of the departed business 
of the once opulent town. 

Leeds and Bradford have grown into mighty towns. Said 
one gentleman, as we gazed upon the vast expanse of Piece 
Hall and pictured it filled with a throng of busy old-time 
merchants: ''First coming here to buy our goods, Leeds 
and Bradford next stole away our trade. Some say here it 
was from a lack of distributive system ; others, a lack of 
skill ; but I think it was a lack of enterprise on the part of 
our manufacturers. "What a busy place old Piece Hall once 
was ! And now but few of the fine stands are let." 

To illustrate the opulence of the old cloth merchants of 
Halifax it is only necessary to call attention to such build- 
ings as that now occupied by the Union Bank. In olden 
times this was the residence of one of the merchant princes, 



116 BBEAD-WINJS^EES ABBOAB, 

and the principal office of the bank was then the banquet 
hall; the decorations on the ceiling were executed by an 
Italian artist who was occupied several years on the work. 
Nearly all these houses were in the center of the city, and 
adjoined the warehouses. In those days, of course, most 
of the goods were manufactured in the cottages of the peo- 
ple. Houses still remain in Halifax, or rather just outside 
the town, now used as farm-houses, which were formerly 
occupied by the Flemish operatives who first started the 
woolen trade in that part of the kingdom. To a stranger 
alighting at the depot on a cold, wet January day the town 
looks unattractive. The streets are narrow and dirty ; and 
the surrounding hills at night remind an American of Pitts- 
burg without the glare of its furnaces. It is noted for 
whimsical buildings, curious courts, strange dark passages, 
droll little windows, quaint alleys, and innumerable turn- 
ings. It is not such a modern town as Huddersfield, yet 
far more unique, and around it clusters much more of his- 
toric interest. 



xxxm. 

Leeds— Giant Industries. 

In my letter from Halifax I presented a number of facts 
showing the decline of the trade of that town. I am now 
able to give the population of the two great woolen towns 
and the two great worsted towns of the empire for three 
periods during the nineteenth century which, figures bear 
out what was said in the Halifax letter. In 1831 Halifax 
was at its zenith, and it should be borne in mind that soon 
after this Bradford changed from all-wool goods to cotton 
warp and began its career of prosperity and increased its 
population from about 77, 000 in 1831 to 183,000 in 1881. Here 
is the table; 



LEEDS— GIANT INDmTRIES. 



117 





1801. 


Rank. 


1831. 


Rank. 


1881. 


Rank. 


Halifax 


63,434 
53,162 
29,704 
14,848 


1 
2 
3 

4 


109,899 

123,393 

76,996 

34,041 


2 
1 
3 

4 


73,633 
309,126 
183,032 

81,825 


4 


Leeds 


1 


Bradford , 

Huddersfield 


2 
3 


Total 


161,148 




345,329 




647,616 









At the opening of the present century Halifax had nearly 
ten thousand inhabitants more than Leeds ; now Leeds has 
over four-fold the population of Halifax. In 1801 Bradford 
contained less than half the population of Halifax ; to-day it 
has nearly three times the number. From the estabhsh- 
ment of the woolen and worsted manufacture in the West 
Riding of Yorkshire the population gradually went up from 
563,953 in 1801 to 976,400 in 1831, and 2,175,134 to-day. This 
shows an increase in the three first decades of the nine- 
teenth century of 73 per cent, and in the last five decades 
of over 100 per cent. The aggregate population of the four 
cities above given shows an increase of over 100 per cent 
during the first period of thirty years; but during the 
second period of fifty years, of less than 100 per cent. Still 
I have shown that the population of the cloth country, 
taken as a whole, has increased more rapidly during the 
latter period, which may be attributed to the building of 
such places as Saltaire, Batey, and other small but thriving 
towns which had no existence prior to the introduction of 
tlie factory system. Those towns have already been men- 
tioned and their location given in my general description of 
the woolen district. The drifting of trade from one town to 
another is worth noting as we pass, because I shall attempt, 
in my closing letters, a history of the migration of indus- 
trial centers in Great Britain. 

I regret to say that in a volume of 400 pages put in circu- 
lation by the State Department at Washington, a few days 
before I left New York, entitled ''The Cotton and Woolen 



118 BREAD -WINNEm ABROAD. 

Mills of Europe," there are only a couple of pages of any 
value to either the statistician or the public, as giving fresh 
or carefully prepared information on the great woolen 
districts of Yorkshire. The exception I refer to is a table of 
wages prepared by Consul Dockery, which, after he ex- 
plained to me the methods he adopted in preparing it, I be- 
lieve may be taken as a fair average of the wages here in the 
Leeds district, but not for Yorkshire, and certainly not for 
Bradford. Since my stay in this city I have carefully gone 
over every page of the twenty-three volumes of the State 
Department Reports, containing, as they do, in the aggre- 
gate, about 5,000 closely printed pages, and am unable to 
find any article from any one of the consuls, of a general 
character, on the woolen manufacture of Great Britain, and 
yet one volume is called ^'The Woolen Mills of Europe" — 
strange that the most important region of the world is left 
out. And yet the annual report of Consul-Greneral Merritt 
for 1882 shows that about $94,000,000 worth of goods have 
in ten years gone to the United States from the Bradford 
district ; over $30,000,000 from the Leeds district ; and nearly 
$69,000,000 from the Glasgow district, the greater portion of 
all of which was woolen and worsted goods. The twenty- 
three volumes and five thousand printed pages aforesaid, 
however, contain valuable information relating to the ''sale 
of cheap American trunks in South Africa," of ''the dis- 
posal of an English railway in Tunis;" the arrival of $47,000 
worth of woolen goods in Tripoli is duly chronicled ; pages 
teem with a glowing description of the customs and sur- 
roundings of Maracaibo; twenty pages suffice to give a 
description of the railway system of Scotland, which in its 
entirety equals, in miles, one-quarter of last year's incre- 
ment in the United States; and there are pages on the 
industries of the Fiji Islands, the "Corset Trade of Wiir- 
temberg," glowing account of " the Stuttgart Conservatory 
of Music," the "Ice Trade of Norway," the ''Trade of 
Morocco with Timbuctoo," "How to Make Prime Butter," 
and a variety of other information, useful in its way, no 



LEEDS— GIANT INDUSTBIES. HQ 

doubt, but not calculated to elevate the tone of the docu- 
ments of a great department of a great country. 

To attempt an exact comparison of the woolen and 
worsted industries of Great Britain with those of the United 
States is a very difficult task, because no adequate statistics 
exist for such a comparison. In England industrial statis- 
tics are not collected, as in the United States, by the Census 
Bureau, and the Board of Trade (the statistical department 
of the Government) makes no returns of this character, as 
English manufacturers have a decided dislike to disclosing 
anything about their business. The official returns under 
the factories and workshops act will assist in the inquiry so 
far as the number of hands are concerned, but it would be 
folly to attempt a guess, for it would be nothing else, of the 
annual product, amount of capital invested, and the value of 
the material consumed. Gen. Walker and his census experts 
have taken care to call pubUc attention to the fact that all 
reports of the value of products are apt to include freight to 
market, commissions, insurance, and many other charges, 
and cannot, therefore, be relied upon as representing the 
sum actually realized by manufacturers for products sold. 
Eegardless of this caution, however, the more fanatical free 
traders here have divided the total amount of wages paid, 
as shown by the census, by the total number of hands re- 
turned as employed, and armed with the quotient a Brad- 
ford gentleman attempted to prove to me the other evening, 
in the Union Club, that the American artisans as a whole 
were paid about the same as the English laborer, 5id., or 11 
cents, an hour. These figures have gone the rounds of the 
English press, and I have no doubt will find their way into 
the speeches of English statesmen and into the pages of the 
English reviews. No explanation is made of the fact that 
the divisor represents merely the greatest number em- 
ployed at some one time during the year ; that it represents 
people of all ages, and that the experts, who are compelled 
by law to make up these statistics, frankly say they are 
worthless for such comparisons. For these reasons I shall 



120 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

make no attempt to compare amounts paid in wages, value 
of material consumed, or of product produced. 

The most recent oflScial figures at my command show that 
in the United Kingdom there are about 1,800 woolen facto- 
ries, 125 shoddy mills, and 700 worsted manufactories, mak- 
ing a total of 2,625. The classification of the United States 
census is somewhat different, and no special enumeration 
is made of the shoddy mills. Broadly speaking, there are 
1,990 woolen mills in the United States and (including felt 
goods, carpets, hosiery, etc., under worsted goods), 696 
worsted mills ; total, 2,680— strangely enough exceeding the 
number in Great Britain by 61, though it must be remem- 
bered that the British mills are much larger institutions, 
established on a firmer basis, and employing nearly double 
the number of hands. In the United States the woolen fac- 
tories are scatered all over the country; in England the in- 
dustry is concentrated in a radius of 22i- miles, and to this 
remarkable concentration, as much as to the cheap labor, 
England owes her supremacy in the woolen trade. The 
United States census of 1880 shows that in the United States 
161,489 persons are employed in this industry; 86,504 in the 
manufacture of woolen goods ; 18,803 in the worsted branch ; 
20,371 in making carpets; 28,817 in the hosiery and knit- 
goods division, and the remainder in manufacturing wool 
hats and felt goods. In Great Britain the woolen factories 
employ 66,717 males and 67,888 females; total 134,605; the 
shoddy mills, 1,571 males and 1,860 females; total 3,431; 
and the worsted factories 57,050 males and 85,047 females; 
total 142,097; making a grand total in these three branches 
of 280,133. This does not include, as the American statis- 
tics do, the hosiery and miscellaneous factories, which may 
be classified under the generic term, *^ woolen goods." Add 
hosiery and it increases the number of factories 556, and 
the number of hands employed 27,667, making the total 
number employed in the kingdom 307,800, against 161,489 
in the United States, which, when one takes into considera- 
tion the difference in the methods of enumeration, means 



I 



LEEDS— COMPETITION. 121 

that Great Britain employs double the number of hands in 
this industry compared with the number employed in the 
States. This comparison will show the relative strength of 
the woolen industry in the two countries without carrying 
it further, which, owing to the imperfection of the statistics, 
might only lead into error. It may be useful to show the 
quantity and value of the imports of raw wool, woolen rags 
and woolen yarns for weaving, into Great Britain in 1880 ; 
together with the number of pounds and yards and value of 
the exports from that country to foreign parts: 

Quantity, 

pounds. Value. 

Sheep and lambs' wool 460,337,412 $130,812,710 

Alpaca, vicuna, llama 2,547,706 884,185 

Goats' wool or hair 13, 203, 343 5, 984, 545 

Woolen rags 92,279,040 4,896,355 

Woolen yarn for weaving 14, 193, 639 8, 568, 835 

Total 582,561,140 $150,346,630 

The exports were: 

Sheep and lambs' wool, pounds. . . 17,177,200 $5,927,530 

Woolen and worsted yarns, pounds 26,154,300 16,720,140 

Woolen cloth, yards 50,062,500 33,670,140 

Worsted stuffs, yards 189,940,200 36,157,885 

Tetal $92,475,695 



XXXIV. 

Leeds— Competition. 



The growth of the woolen industry of the United States 
dates from the close of the war. In 1860 the country pro- 
duced but 60,000,000 pounds of wool and imported about 
42,000,000 pounds, consuming annually about 100,000,000 
pounds. Under a judicious tariff, the wool chp reached in 
1881, 290,000,000 pounds, and the importation 68,000,000 
pounds, making the total consumption probably 258,000,000 



122 BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

pounds. Now that the United States has embarked in this 
industry, it will not do to pause and suppose that the United 
States is strong enough to compete with England. It is 
easy to say the total product of the woolen factories has 
reached in value in 1880, $267,000,000; that it is no longer an 
infant industry and needs no more protection. 

What have I shown in this letter? 

That we are competing with a country employing double 
the number of operatives with a less number of estabUsh- 
ments : 

That the mills in England are concentrated in a radius of 
twenty-two and a half miles : 

That during America's second war with England, when 
Eichard Cobden was picking up the rudiments of knowledge 
at the old grammar school at Midhurst, and a generation 
before the Manchester school carried the day in Parhament, 
England was exporting annually $50,000,000 worth of woolen 
goods, while after sixty -five years of free trade she only ex- 
ports $92,000,000 worth! 

And yet the British free trader and his echo in the United 
States talk of monopoly. 

Wherein is the monopoly? 

The official figures show that 649 worsted mills in England 
employ 131,830 hands, while in the United States I have 
shown that nearly 2,000 woolen mills, spreading their bene- 
fits throughout the broad land, following closely along the 
lines of agriculture, and building up thriving manufactur- 
ing cities in the West, employ but 86,504 operatives. Had 
it not been for this development in America, England would 
have maintained the American trade, and her exports of 
woolen goods to-day would have been $360,000,000 instead of 
but $42,000,000 more than it was in 1815. Wages in those 
times in England were good, and the British manufacturer 
really supposed that all the world was dependent on him for 
manufactured goods. A weaver in 1815 could earn 34s. 6d., 
or about $8.50 a week, while to-day he is lucky to earn half 
of that amount. Of course I am aware that these high 



LEEDS— COMPETITION. 



123 



wages arose in part out of improvements ia weaving. It 
was difficult to get weavers. But the profits of weaving 
soon increased the supply, and children were extensively 
taught to weave. In the case of cotton and worsted, in 
which work is light, the labor of the parent was soon trans- 
ferred to the child, but in woolen cloth weaving, which is 
practically a man's work, the change was not so rapid, as 
the statistics already given show that the proportion of 
males in this latter branch of the trade is much greater than 
in the worsted division. 

Next comes a comparison of wages in this industry. In 
the following table the average weekly earnings in the 
United States are taken from Mr. Carroll O. Wright's report 
for 1882, which I regard as the very best authority ; while 
those from England were obtained by myself direct from the 
pay rolls of manufacturers in Yorkshire : 



Operatives. 



Wool-sorters (men) 

Washers and scourers (men) 

Dyers (men) » 

Young persons 

Carders (men) 

Carders (women). 

Carders (young persons). . . . 

Spinners (men) 

Spinners (boys) 

Spinners (women) 

Spinners (young persons) . . . 

Weavers (men). 

Weavers (women) 

Giggers (men) 

Shearers (men) 

Mechanics (men) 

Engineers (men) 

Firemen 

Watchmen 

Laborers (men) 



Average Weekly Earnings. 



U.S. 


England. 


Excess 
in U. S. 


|9 43 


$6 00 


$3 43 


8 84 


5 75 


3 09 


7 81 


5 75 


2 06 


5 12 


3 00 


2 12 


8 12 


5 00 


3 12 


3 39 


3 25 


2 14 


4 53 


2 50 


2 03 


9 02 


5 00 


4 05 


4 81 


2 00 


2 81 


6 18 


3 00 


3 18 


4 92 


2 50 


2 42 


8 53 


5 00 


3 53 


7 45 


3 50 


3 95 


7 00 


5 00 


2 00 


8 05 


5 25 


2 80 


13 43 


7 50 


5 93 


11 07 


7 50 


3 75 


8 00 


6 00 


2 00 


9 63 


5 00 


4 63 


8 58 


4 50 


4 18 



124 BBEAD-WmNERS ABROAD, 

There is no general market rate for foremen and overseers, 
their wages depending on skill, length of service with the 
particular mill, and varying considerably in different locali- 
ties. I have selected for the above table the most important 
people about the mills. I have not sought to confuse the 
- reader with a detailed tabulated statement, but I can vouch 
for what I have given, as they were obtained from the books 
of two different manufacturers, carefully compared and 
afterward substantially verified by conversation with each 
class of operatives. It is also safe to say they are above 
rather than below the real amount paid. I have no doubt 
that Mr. "Wright's figures for Massachusetts are equally trust- 
worthy. It will be seen that in some divisions of the woolen 
industry American manufacturers have to pay nearly double 
the amount paid for the same labor in England. I regret 
that Mr. Wright in his report makes no separate division of 
the worsted mills, so the following table cannot be compared 
with a similar mill in the United States : 

WORSTED MANUFACTURE IN ENGLAND. 

(Hours of labor 56 per week.) 

Wool sorters (men). $7 50 to $8 00 

Machine wool-combers (men) 3 50 to 4 25 

Dyers (men) 3 25 to 6 00 

Overlookers (men) 7 00 to 8 00 

Overlookers' assistants (men) 2 50 to 5 00 

Spinners (women) 2 50 to 3 00 

Spinners (boys) 2 25 to 2 75 

Spinners (girls) 1 00 to 1 50 

Weavers (men) 4 00 to 5 00 

Weavers (women) 3 00 to 4 00 

Heelers (women) 3 00 to 4 00 

Drawers (women) 2 50 to 2 75 

Packers (women) 4 00 to 5 00 

Wool- washers (women) 4 00 to 4 50 

The figures for the ahove table were also obtained from 
the counting-room books of a representative worsted mill, 
and, as in the above, the information thus obtained corrobo- 
rated by personal interviews with the operatives and with 



LEEDS— COMPETITION, 125 

other manufacturers. In some cases it will be seen the dif- 
ference in the earnings of the same class of operatives is 
considerable, but as in the case of dyers and overlookers' 
assistants, the skiQ and aptitude of the hand, together with 
the time of service, differs more widely than in spinning 
and weaving. Though even in these latter divisions of the 
work some girls are able to earn much more than others. 
Again, these figures err, if it all, on the right side, for some 
of the most trustworthy of Bradford's manufacturers as- 
sured me that young persons from -thirteen to eighteen 
years of age never earned more than 12s. (less than $3) a 
week, and that they descended as low as 6s. (less than $1.50) 
a week for fifty-six hours of steady, confining, dusty, tedious 
work, and the men varied in their earnings from 15s., 18s. 
to 20s. (from $3.75 to $5) but that the latter was exceptional, 
he said. And this with a family to maintain. 

And so toiling and sorrowing, with no future and little 
hope, contented to live and die in the shadow of these giant 
factories, with little or no chance to better themselves, 
fiLxtures, in fact, around the mills, as the peasants were to 
the land in feudal times, the English operatives slave on, 
while the mill-owner discusses in the club how he can 
produce an article a farthing cheaper per yard. The idea of 
cheapness pervades the whole kingdom. It is all some 
people seem to live for. There is no limit to it. The strug- 
gle for cheapne:s sometimes brings ruin to the miQ-owner 
and starvation to the operatives. But for all that the 
struggle goes on. For example, when in Scotland in De- 
cember, I traveled in some cases for less than a penny a 
mile first-class. In my opinion no one demands this; in 
fact the pubUc has no right to demand it, for it means the 
degTadation of labor. What is the result of Scotland's cheap 
railway travehng? 

A strike— which has unfolded to the public what their so- 
called "demands for cheap traveling" mean — the suffering 
that their fellow-beings have undergone. 

It is not a mere question, in Scotland, whether the men 



126 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

shall work fifty-six or fifty-seven hours a week ; but it is 
whether they should be required to hang on at important 
duty till nature is so exhausted that they fall asleep clutch- 
ing the handles of the critical levers on the accurate moving 
of which the lives of hundreds of travelers depend. At one 
of the meetings of the men, this week, an engine-driver 
stated that in one week he worked ninety-six hours, his 
Thursdays spell lasting 23f hours. A pointsman had 200 
hours duty in a single fortnight. A goods guard for twenty 
consecutive days had 360 working hours, or an average of 
eighteen hours a day. These astonishing revelations might 
well make one pause, when advocating that cheapness is the 
only thing to be considered. Cheapness in railroading and 
cheapness in manufacturing means the exhaustion or the 
starvation of the laborers. It can be obtained in no other 
way. Free trade may bring cheapness. It will not prevent 
the degradation of labor. 



XXXV. 

HUDDERSFIELD— EOBIN HOOD. 

**HuDDERSFiELD, Almondbury," would look as grotesque 
now as ''Bradford, near Leeds," yet there was a time when 
the expression was literally the correct one. Huddersfield 
is what they call in England, a modern town; that is, I 
suppose, its nana e does not appear in ''Domesday Book." 
The antiquities, however, are supplied from the neighbor- 
ing parish of Almondbury, which has existed from time 
immemorial, and which to-day is called "the old part of 
Huddersfield." Though honored by name in conquering 
William's Book, it must not be understood that Hudders- 
field was not "indirectly mentioned," for industrious local 
antiquarians have discovered that the district in which 
Huddersfield now stands was described in Domesday Book 
as " six carucates of land to be taxed, affording occupation 
for eight ploughs." Anything to be taxed was not likely to 
escape those who "came over" with William, so Hudders- 



HUDDERSFIELD- ROBIN HOOD. 127 

field was noted. In place of the ''eight ploughs," the Hud- 
dersfield of to-day affords occupation for thousands of oper- 
atives in its busy cloth mills. Its wide streets and hand- 
some buildings, built almost entirely of fine, whitish free- 
stone, make it one of the prettiest and cleanest manufac- 
turing towns of the Cloth Eegion. There are plenty of 
good shops, several fine banks, and the people seem to have 
lots of vim and " goaheadativeness" in them. The town it- 
self is hemmed in on all sides by high hills and along the 
banks of the Calder and the Coine (both in the vicinity) 
there are many lovely spots — deep secluded dells, high, pre- 
cipitous ridges and densely wooded hills. In the midst of 
this wild scenery, and not far from Huddersfield, is the 
ancient priory where Eobin Hood died. The Prioress of 
Kirkiees Priory was supposed to be the outlaw's cousin, and 
in a little room in the quaint old gate-house Eobin Hood 
begged of Little John for one more look at the landscape he 
loved so well, and as his life blood ebbed fast, the lattice 
window was thrown open, and invigorated by the fresh, 
fragrant breeze, he took his bow and sent forth an arrow. 

'* And where this arrow down should fall 
There buried should he be." 

In former days it was the custom to write words of wis- 
dom on tombstones and underneath portraits. "The older 
part of Huddersfield" glories in some of those lines, which 
a new and reckless generation may perhaps read in spite of 
the adverse handling of ancient orthography, and possibly 
profit therefrom. Here is one I deciphered on a picture in 
a haunted hall near Huddersfield— it is descriptive of the 
life of an honest Yorkshire matron, vita uxoris honesta: 

To live at home in howswyverie, 
To order well my famylye, 
To see they lyve not Idillye, 
To bring upe childrene vertuislye, 
To rely eve poor foulk willinglye: 
This is my care with modestye, 
To leade my lyfe in honestye. 



128 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD 

Wholesome sentiments those, and the good old dames of 
Huddersfield also believe in 

** Obeying our howsbands in what lawful is." 

Honest, sober, thrifty and industrious were the ancestors 
of the manufacturers of Huddersfield, and to this day, un- 
like some towns in the cloth district, the aim in Hudders- 
field is quaUty rather than cheapness, and the great Lord of 
Shoddy, with its maximum of slurriness, swiftness, profit 
and mendacity, for the devil's sake, amen, is not worship- 
ped to the same extent as at Batley, Dewsbury, and, in some 
lines of trade, I may add Bradford. In its production of 
better-class goods, in worsted makes especially, Hudders- 
field now stands unrivalled, and its success and present 
prosperity are largely due to this ; and its goods are attract- 
ive enough to break in abroad over the cheaper labor of the 
continent and the adverse tariff laws of nearly all foreign 
countries. 

Though destitute of ancient history, the industrial growth 
of Huddersfield has not been attained without its share of 
bloody stains and tragic deeds, which, owing to ignorance 
and prejudice, and sometimes to actual want, ushered in 
the great industrial era of England's history. This outbreak 
of ignorance against the inventions and improvements 
made in the machinery for spinning and weaving at one 
time threatened to be more secret, more grim, and more 
disastrous to progress than anything of the kind known 
even in the middle ages. It began by an outbreak of frame- 
work knitters at Nottingham, who could not exist on the 
small wages to which they were reduced, and only ended 
when they discovered that by chopping up and burning 
frames they were destroying the means by which they 
might live. The Luddite insurrection was brought about 
by the introduction of machinery for finishing cloth, and 
though it took its rise in Nottingham, soon spread into 
Yorkshire, and Huddersfield was one of the towns most 
deeply engaged in it. A great number of croppers joined 



HUDDEESFIELD'-PANDEMONIUM ITSELF. 129 

themselves into a confederacy, and avowed with fearful 
oaths their determination to prevent the introduction of 
machinery into this branch of trade. They prowled about 
the country at night, their faces variously disguised, and 
appearing where least expected, would smash into frag- 
ments manufacturers' frames, cut woolen cloth into shreds 
and waylay and murder the manufacturer. A reign of 
terror followed, and it was not safe for Huddersfield manu- 
facturers to walk abroad after nightfall. This ill feeling 
between master and men continued to break out in various 
ways until the commercial depression of 1817, when it cul- 
minated in Huddersfield in the famous ^' Folly Hall" fight, 
at which place some hundreds of discontented men assem- 
bled, deluded by the expectation that they would be joined 
by men from all parts of the kingdom, that they would 
then march to London and overturn the Government. 
The appearance of the militia finally dispersed the rioters. 
In 1820, owing to the shocking distress which prevailed 
among the manufacturing operatives, an attack was made 
on all sides of Huddersfield. The mails were stopped and 
an open rebellion threatened, but, not being joined by an 
expected army of London roughs, and hearing of the rapid 
approach of the king's troops, they dispersed with but little 
bloodshed. 



XXXVI. 

Huddersfield— Pandemonium Itself. 

The Huddersfield ^^ men-folk," hke their neighbors at 
Bradford, never hesitated to use physical force to gain a 
point either from the manufacturer or from Parliament, 
and in this they have oftentimes been even cruel. A Hud- 
dersfield parliamentary election half a century ago, during 
the agitation of the *'Ten Hours" bill, was a lively and a 
rough scene. The eminent Scottish divine, Dr. Chalmers, 
once visited the town during one of these contests, and 
9 



130 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

could compare the yelling myriads in the market place with 
nothing short of Pandemonium itself. From the window of 
the George Inn the Doctor saw a prodigious assembly of 
people at a market. The crowd, he says, was further 
augmented by a political meeting in the open air, and the 
whole of the spacious Market Place was filled with the 
multitude. A Mr. Oastler held forth in the most forensic 
manner and depicted the sufferings of the factory children. 
The multitude alternately yelled and cheered. Then fol- 
lowed what, to the pious Doctor, was an ^^ original scene" — 
the burning of the Factory Commissioners, Captain Fenton, 
one of the obnoxious members of Parliament, and another 
unpopular master manufacturer, in effigy. '^The figures 
were fearfully like men," says Dr. Chalmers, ^' and it being 
now dark, the conflagration lighted up the whole square, 
and revealed the faces of the yelling myriads so as to give 
the aspect and character of Pandemonium to the scene. 
The burning figures were tossed ferociously in the air, and 
to renew their combustion were dashed into a bon-fire from 
time to time." 

But these were the ^*good old times" in England, when 
the upper classes were coarse, drunken, and ill-mannered, 
and the lower classes ferocious and brutal ; when the popu- 
lar amusements of the people were man-fighting, dog-fight- 
ing, and cock-fighting, and their '^time-honored institu- 
tions" the public gallows, the stock, and the pillory. Such 
ferocious amusements have happily now departed and the 
laborers and operatives of the manufacturing towns have 
healthier amusements and recreations, if they choose to 
avail themselves of them, and have opportunity, at least, to 
lead a sounder and soberer life, and to exhibit a more 
humane spirit than they did in the earlier part of the pres- 
ent century. 

''We ought to increase our trade with the United States," 
said Mr. James Drake, one of the leading woolen manufact- 
urers of Huddersfield. "The fact is," continued he, "last 
year we sent from here $3,378,000 worth of goods to your 



HUDDEBSFIELD—PANDEMONIUM ITSELF, 131 

country; but we ought to send more. For twenty years 
has Huddersfield been struggling against adverse tariffs. 
Our own colonies are worse than foreign countries. They 
generously allow England to fight for them at our own ex- 
pense, but when we want to send them goods they put on a 
tariff and shut us out. This is the case in Canada, Victoria, 
New Zealand, and the Cape." 

*' Then you think foreign tariffs are the impediments in 
the way of extending trade?" 

^^ Most assuredly. The United States, France, Germany, 
Italy, Spain, Australia and Russia, all turn their tariffs 
against us. No sooner do we invent something here, say in 
tweeds, cheap and attractive, than they begin to fight their 
way, in spite of these formidable obstacles, into these coun- 
tries ; then they increase the pound duty, or by some other 
ingenious device block us." 

In a further conversation with Mr. Drake, whom I found 
a most intelligent man, he told me that on account of the 
high duties in Germany low, heavy woolen goods are nearly 
driven out of the market, and several of the Dewsbury and 
Batley manufacturers have now opened mills in Germany, 
where they produce these goods. Of course he admitted 
that looking at the question from a political standpoint, this 
was a good thing for Germany. The manufacturers of the 
cloth country are all complaining bitterly of the new 
French tariff, not only on account of the duties being 
higher, but of the *' vexatious and ridiculous mode of classi- 
fication and incidence." The classification is always "ridic- 
ulous" here when it keeps out the goods. I also learned in 
Huddersfield that the Italian demand for English woolens 
is not what it used to be in former years. The high tariff 
they say is, of course , a great drawback, " while the Italian 
manufacturers continue to increase." This is almost a 
crime in the eyes of an Englishman. "And though this 
interest is not as yet a large one, on account of cheap labor, 
long hours, and some useful wool grown in their own coun- 
try, their manufacturers are enabled to produce a variety 



132 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

of useful goods at an extremely cheap rate." The demand 
for **Dewsbury seal-skins" has also greatly fallen off in 
Germany during the past year, owing to the fact that the 
Dewsbury seal-skin men have also started factories in Bis- 
marck's domains, and Germany manufactures its own 
*^ seal-skins." The prospect of reduced tariff in any country 
is heralded with great delight at Huddersfield. The subject 
has been recently agitated in Spain, '^but without, so far, 
practical results," said one manufacturer. Said another 
prominent mill owner: 

**The success of the Democratic party in America and 
their coming majority in Congress and their prospects in 
1884, are looked upon here as forerunners of a day-break in 
the trade of the cloth country. Their traditions are Free 
Trade, and the manufacturers of England confidently expect 
that, should they be installed at Washington, they will 
throw down wholly, or at least in part, the artificial barriers 
which have so long and maleficently barred out our pro- 
ducts. Should that fortunate day come for the great textile 
and great mining and great manufacturing counties of Eng- 
land, the increased skill of our manufacturers, their en- 
larged experience, their cheaper capital labor, and their 
concentration of effort, will again give us back at least a 
good part of the fifty millions of customers of whom we 
have been robbed by your high war tariff." 

I said to my enthusiastic friend: *' Build not your hopes 
on the Democratic party." 

When the prosperity of these hives of human industry 
concentrated, as they are, in such a limited area, depends 
so much upon the tariffs of other countries, all of which 
seem of late years determined to develop home industries, 
is it surprising that the English manufacturer, as he views 
his great workshop, trembling at the uncertainty of foreign 
legislation, should exclaim: 

^*This sinister fallacy of Protection seems to lead a 
charmed life, clinging as closely to many distinguished 
foreign statesmen as the Old Man of the Sea did to Sindbad; 



HVDDERSFIELD LOGIC. 133 

and, if the figure may be so suddenly changed, rising ever 
like a phoenix from the ashes of its own iaanifest failures." 
Its "own manifest failures," the building up in the United 
States of an industrial empire to-day greater than the lesser 
Britain from which it sprang; the conversion of a vast 
farming country into a land of varied pursuits and great 
industrial cities ; the starting of industries in war-like Ger- 
many, to find employment for and possibly stem the out- 
pouring of the flower of its population to other lands ; the 
dawn of an industrial era in the Italian Eepublic, and the 
return of manufacturing prosperity to poverty-stricken 
Spain. In this brief letter I have shown from words spoken 
by the manufacturers of Huddersfield themselves that these 
are the present tendencies of Protection. Why, then, should 
not "many distinguished statesmen" naturally doubt the 
wisdom of a system propounding laissez-faire as the last 
word of human wisdom? 



XXXVII. 

Huddersfield Logic. 



The following comments appeared in The Tribune with 
the interview with Mr. Drake. Mr. Charles Reade in one 
of his novels gives a pictorial illustration of provincial ma- 
noeuvers in England. The country is traced on a large scale, 
limited only by the breadth of the page ; the United King- 
dom is outlined in reduced proportions within the county, 
and the globe is an insignificant baU scarcely larger than a 
pea, squeezed into an obscure corner. These were the rela- 
tive proportions which the world, the kingdom and the 
county had acquired in the mind of a typical English squire. 
The manufacturers of Huddersfield whose talk Mr. Porter re- 
produced for our readers in his admirable letter have a simi- 
lar conception of industrial progress. Huddersfield occupies 



134 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

so large a share of their thoughts that they cannot find 
space for much else, England is tucked away somewhere 
inside Huddersfield, and the terrestrial ball is left spinning 
in minute insignificance just outside Huddersfield. They 
complain that for twenty years, Huddersfield has been strug- 
gling against adverse tariffs. English diplomatists cannot 
negotiate free-trade tariffs for Huddersfield benefit. Eng- 
lish economists cannot induce a foolish and wicked world to 
do its duty by Huddersfield. As soon as Huddersfield in- 
vents something new in tweeds "cheap and attractive," and 
a foreign market is opened for it, up goes the duty and Hud- 
dersfield is cheated out of the fruits of its industry. Bis- 
marck's tariff has shut out all, except the finest class of 
Huddersfield's woolens, and Germany has actually begun 
to produce the low heavy grade for itself, and is even manu- 
facturing its own sealskins. The French mode of classifica- 
tion is also vexatious as far as Huddersfield is concerned, 
and Italian manufactures are steadily increasing under one 
of those '' absurd " high tariffs. Spain, Austria and Russia 
are indifferent to Huddersfield's welfare; and as for the 
British Colonies, Canada, Victoria and the Cape, they are 
* ^ worse than foreign countries. " Altogether it seems a dark 
night for Huddersfield, and the only gleam of light is the 
prospect of Democratic success in American elections. 
" That," says one of Huddersfield's woolen manufacturers, 
*^ will again give us back at least a good part of the fifty 
millions of customers of whom we have been robbed by your 
high war tariff." 

Huddersfield's logic in this matter is so simple, that it can 
be readily followed even by those who regard economies as 
a science of complex abstractions. Free-trade is a system 
which happens to suit Huddersfield's individuality. If it 
could be rendered a principle of universal application, Hud- 
dersfield would revel in prosperity, making woolens not only 
for England and Ireland, but also for fifty million cus- 
tomers in the United States and for the rest of mankind. 
Huddersfield naturally infers that a policy which undoubt- 




1 



EUDDERSFIELD LOGIC. 135 

edly would be best for itself must also be best for all nations. 
It wants to have the tariffs broken down. It cannot under- 
stand why the nations of the earth are unwilUng to find out 
what they can make most cheaply or what they can do most 
profitably, and then make it and do just that. For making 
cloth to Huddersfield has the advantages of perfected skill, 
enlarged experience, cheap capital and cheap labor. Hud- 
dersfield is mUing to make cloth for customers all over the 
world, and receive in return the cheapest products of every 
nation. It could do this now if ^'the sinister principle of 
Protection " were not in the way. Under a competitive sys- 
tem of free-trade it is confident that the nations would be 
admitted into a universal brotherhood whose chief concern 
would be the greatest good of the greatest number. As a 
matter of course it would expect to make nearly all the cloth 
for that federated commonwealth of unselfish humanity: 
and what a spectacle it would be for gods and men ! An era 
of universal peace, nations trafficking their cheapest pro- 
ducts, and mankind arrayed with one consent in Hudders- 
field wooUens ! 

The fallacy in Huddersfield logic is the assumption that 
what suits it individually, will of necessity be best for gov- 
ernments and nations under all combinations of economic 
conditions. Huddersfield, and England as weU, have un- 
doubtedly prospered under free-trade, and if they were not 
encompassed by a community of high-tariff nations, they 
would probably thrive as they have never thrived in the 
past. But the conditions affecting Huddersfield are not 
* universal, and it does not follow that because England 
would be benefited by universal free-trade, other nations 
must recognize all obhgations to incur industrial martyr- 
dom for the sake of an abstract principle. Nations, like men 
of business, are guided by practical experience, rather than 
by vague and amiable theories. If Bismarck finds that Pro- 
tection gives elasticity to the revenue, develops industries, 
gives employment to a surplus population, checks emigra- 
tion, and in a general way promotes the weKare ^of the 



136 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

Fatherland, he will not aboHsh the tariff for the sake of the 
idealists' millenium, and the Huddersfield cloth trade. If 
Canada, as Lord Lome admitted when he was in Washing- 
ton, has been directly benefited by Protection, she will not 
return to free-trade to promote the ends of universal brother- 
hood, and the profits of Huddersfield. Nor will the United 
States which a translantic traveller has described as '^ forty 
Englands rolled into one " renounce its economic policy for 
the sake of glittering generalities and Huddersfield. It has 
done what it could to promote the greatest good of the great- 
est number of its own people, and it leaves idealists to work 
out their own dreams. 



XXXVIII. 

The Clothiers of Defoe's Time. 

The antiquity of Leeds is undoubted. The Venerable 
Bede mentions it as the place where Of wy. King of North- 
umberland, routed Penda, the Mercian, ^^and that to the 
great advantage of both nations." Leland, over three cen- 
turies ago, thought it was ** praty market towne having one 
paroche chirche, reasonably well buildid, and as large as 
Bradef ord, but not so quick as it. The towne stondith most 
by clothing." Camden, in the seventeenth century, de- 
scribed Leeds as ^*a wealthy cloathing town." This, until 
we come down to that precursor of all British guide-books, 
Defoe's *' Tour Through Great Pritain," was the sum of what 
the old historians had to say about Leeds. Defoe, however, 
writing over a century and a half ago, seems to have been 
struck with the importance of Leeds, though he dismissed 
Bradford as being '^ of no other note than having given birth 
to Dr. Sharp, the good Archbishop of York." He described 
Leeds as^^a large, wealthy and populous town," with a 
stone bridge so strong, so large and so wide that formerly 



THE CLOTHIERS OF DEFOE'S TIME. 137 

the cloth market was held on it, ^^ and therefore the refresh- 
ment given the clothiers by the inn-keepers (being a pot of 
ale, a noggin of pottage and a trencher of beef for twopence) 
is called the ' Briggshot ' to this day." According to Defoe, 
in his time the Leeds cloth market was *'a prodigy of its 
kind, and perhaps not to be equalled in the world." He had 
seen the market for serges at Exeter, which *' is indeed a 
wonderful thing," but that was only once a week, whereas 
Leeds held a market every Tuesday and Saturday. Early 
in the morning of these market days '' tressels were placed 
in two rows in the streets, " making a temporary counter. 
The clothiers came in early in the morning with their cloth, 
and at *^6 o'clock in the summer and 7 in the winter the 
market bell at the old chapel by the bridge rings; upon 
which it would surprise a stranger to see in a few minutes, 
without hurry or noise or the least disorder,, the whole 
market is filled, and all the boards upon the tressels with 
cloth, each proprietor standing behind his own piece." The 
sales then took place, and in less than half an hour the cloth 
would begin to move off, the clothier himself taking it on 
his shoulder to the merchant's house. In this way Defoe 
declares he had seen from £10,000 to £20,000 worth of cloth, 
and sometimes more, bought and sold ^'in little more than 
an hour." 

From the time of Charles I., when Leeds sided with the 
royalists, to the beginning of the present century, no great 
change in the manners and habits of the people of Leeds 
appears to have taken place, which period, excepting the 
civil war itself, full of gloom and turbulence, was on the 
whole a sleepy, unenterprising, uninquiring time. Trade, 
with little deviation, ran in its regular and wonted channel ; 
a few principal merchants were acquiring from time to time 
ample fortunes, and beginning to profit by the improvidence 
of ancient families around them, in the purchase of estates. 
There was httle of the spirit of adventure, little credit and 
therefore little risk. The dwellings of the most thriving 
manufacturers and merchants of Leeds in those days were 



138 BBEAD-WINNEB8 ABBOAD. 

little better than the stables of to-day— narrow windows 
with diamond '^quarrels" and stone floors. At night the 

— ** Rich burgher, whose substantial door, 
Cross-barred and bolted fast, feared no assault " — 

retired to rest with his windows secured by iron stanchells 
and every part of his dwelling calculated to stand a siege. 
The cloth-maker and buyer of Defoe's time would have 
trembled to commit himself and his wealth to the frail and 
flimsy security of sashes and plate-glass. The times were 
especially favorable to a spirit of moderation and economy. 

The first break into this monotony at Leeds, and I beheve 
the first undertaking of the kind in the kingdom, was to 
render the Aire and the Calder navigable, which was done 
by the merchants '' without caUing in the assistance of the 
nobility and gentry," and by which means a communication 
was opened from Leeds and Wakefield to York and Hull, so 
says Defoe,. ^' that all the woolen manufactures now ex- 
ported are carried by water to Hull and there shipped for 
Holland, Bremen, Hamburg and the Baltic." It is difficult 
in these days of railroads to conceive of the impediments in 
the way of commerce and manufactures in these days of the 
infancy of British industries. The roads around Leeds were 
sloughs almost impassable by single carts. The carriage of 
raw wool and manufactured goods was performed on backs 
of single horses. The occupation of a merchant was toilsome 
and perilous. On horseback before daybreak and long after 
nightfall, these hardy sons of trade pursued their labors 
with spirit and intrepidity amid sloughs, darkness, inclem- 
ent weather, highwaymen and broken causeways. 

In my Bradford and Huddersfield letters I gave a brief 
description of a parliamentary election early in the present 
century. Unlike her near neighbors, Leeds never placed 
much value on Parliamentary representation, and indeed 
the pious Dr. Whitaker, antiquarian and historian of Leeds, 
congratulates his fellow-citizens that when Charles I. incor- 
porated the town of Leeds by letter patent, ^^ by a singular 



I 



THE CLOTEIEBS OF DEFOE'S TIME, 139 

felicity we escaped the* inconvenient privilege of sending 
members to Parliament." As a result of this the good Doctor 
notes the entire ^^ absence of periodical seasons of popular 
phrenzy which accompany general elections." Neverthe- 
less, Leeds was once represented in Parliament by A. Bayne, 
"as creature of Lambert," of whom Whittaker said, "we 
have little reason to be proud." Whittaker in his history 
publishes a copy of a letter written July 18, 1654, by this 
Bayne, which shows, from the following extract, the im- 
portance of the cloth trade at that time. " And in all your 
consultacons let me begg of you to endeavor the promotion 
of the clothing trade, which, you know, under God, is the 
greatest meanes of m.ost of your wel beings." 

Closing the chapter of Old Leeds, what a contrast is the 
busy city of to-day, with its handsome public buildings, its 
magnificent park, its grand charitable institutions, its varied 
industries and its 320,000 population. Leeds stands on the 
edge of a rich and vast coal-field. Near it is mined the best 
iron for the construction of locomotives and all kinds of 
machinery, and hence have grown up immense locomotive 
works, shops for the manufacture of spinning machinery; 
and, indeed, all kinds of metal industries are carried on in 
Leeds, including several celebrated steam plough works. 
About thirty firms are engaged in the manufacture of chem- 
icals, and the manufacture of glass bottles, besides an ex- 
tensive leather trade and several important boot and shoe 
factories. There is a flax manufactory at Leeds which em- 
ploys 1,000 persons in one room, and this factory has the 
capacity of spinning 70,000,000 yards of linen yarn daily. 

But free-trade has completely ruined this industry as will 
be seen from the following statement which I quote from a 
prominent Englishman (Sir Algeron Borthwick) who knows 
whereof he speaks : ' ' Englishmen know how great has been 
the strain of late years on our industries, and I need not 
cite many instances, but I will just take one. There is the 
great flax industry of Leeds and of Shrewsbury, which em- 
ployed 20,000 working men. In the last ten years that 



140 BEE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

industry has sunk away and perished, owing to foreign com- 
petition. The Messrs. Marshall, of Leeds, the largest of that 
great branch of industry, have stood for the last five years 
a continuous loss of $100,000 a year. They had then to 
consider the question of throwing out of work their 4,000 
workmen, and of stopping their mills altogether. They 
found that the case was so hopeless that they must do it at 
a further loss to themselves — you will see how the capitaHst 
suffers— of $600,000. What did they do with the remnant 
of that capital? They have taken it away out of this coun- 
try. They have taken it over to Protectionist America, 
where again they can win large returns by the employment 
of other than English labor." 

Besides all this, Leeds has blanket, canvas, carpet, sacking, 
and rope manufactories, and a limited trade in worsted 
goods; also dye-works, paper-mills, boat-builders, marble, 
glass, earthenware works, breweries and glue-works. The 
flax mills rank next to those of Belfast. This brief enumer- 
ation of the industries of Leeds shows that while it is the 
greatest cloth town, as indicated in my previous letter, it 
also has a great variety of other industries, and in this 
respect it resembles Glasgow more than Bradford, which 
latter is almost wholly given over to textiles. With coal, 
iron and limestone beneath it, with a neighborhood on one 
side in which abounds clay adapted for the manufacture of 
bricks, fire-bricks, tiles and pottery, with a reputation for 
cloths, which I hp.ve shown extends back for centuries, with 
a vast manufacturing district on one side and a rich agricul- 
tural district on the other, and with a network of railroads 
extending all over the empire, Leeds may well be put down 
as one of the most, prosperous and progressive manufactur- 
ing cities in the British Isles. 



LEEDS—'' IN MY EXPERIENCE NEVER:' 141 

XXXTX. 

Leeds— ** In My Experience Never." 

I have already made a careful comparison of the wages 
paid in Leeds, in the woolen mills, with those paid in the 
woolen mills in the United States, and from those figures 
my readers can easily judge of the condition of the opera- 
tives. In the present letter some additional facts about 
the general social condition of the working classes will be 
presented, together with the account of a walk round the 
entire city, and a visit to scores of operatives' and other 
wage-earners' houses, with a general description of the 
places in which they live and their social condition. The 
greater part of this inquiry was conducted in company with 
one of Her Majesty's Inspectors, kindly detailed by Chief 
Constable Bower expressly for this purpose, to enable me to 
make a thorough investigation. 

The centre of Leeds is almost wholly occupied by the 
great warehouses and the principal business houses. Un- 
questionably the worst part of the city is the Kirkgate Ward, 
extending eastward beyond Richmond Hill. Here live, hud- 
dled together in some of the vilest courts I have ever met 
with, the poorest laboring classes, the Irish ^^ element," and 
most of the thieves. So bad had this quarter of the city 
become that a few years ago the Borough bought three or 
four of the worst streets, pulled down all the houses, and 
scattered the inmates. But there is yet great room for im- 
provements. Take "Cherry Tree Court," and, though not 
a tall man, I had to bend nearly double in order to get 
through the causeway leading to it. In these courts you 
find whole families living in one room, the floor of which is 
of broken paving-stones, containing hardly a vestige of fur- 
niture. Poor red-nosed, pinched-faced, shoeless, wretched 
little children, with hardly a rag on their backs, greet you 
on all hands. As a rule, I am glad to say, the inmates of 



142 BBEAD -WINNEBS ABBOAB, 

these houses belong to a class of men to be found in nearly- 
all large cities, who do no regular work, but live from hand 
to mouth by odd jobs and probably squander half their earn- 
ings in the groggeries that occupy almost every corner in 
this part of Leeds. Every effort is being made to improve 
this melancholy condition of affairs. Model lodging-houses 
have been erected in the vicinity, and in this way at least 
many of the single men have been rescued from these pol- 
luted dens. 

One of these lodging-houses is said to be the largest in the 
empire, containing, I believe, about 400 lodgers, and is a 
well-conducted institution. It is far ahead of those found 
at Bradford. The rooms are kept clean and well ventilated, 
and a man may live at this establishment for 10s. or $2 50 a 
week. He pays 4d. or 6d. a night for his lodgings and has 
the use of the large kitchen, containing a number of ranges, 
hot water in abundance and utensils for cooking and serving 
meals. He, of course, must cook his own victuals, and the 
day I visited the place a dozen or more burly English labor- 
ers and some that were skilled artisans stood round these 
stoves frying tripe and bacon, scraps of pork and scraps of 
beef and mutton, shoes of bullock's heart and liver. On the 
table near by, tied up in a clean blue or white or red and 
white spotted .handkerchief, was the other part of the repast, 
a pound or two of bread. So small are the earnings of these 
men that they cannot afford to rent a room, but must thus 
live from day to day, paying each night at a sort of box- 
office the fourpence or sixpence for the privilege of occupy- 
ing a room which, I know, in one instance, is capable of ac- 
commodating no less than sixty guests. There is also a 
large dining hall in Kirkgate, erected by subscription, in 
which is served daily ^'a large plate of meat, potatoes, veg- 
tables and bread" for eightpence, or sixteen cents. Plate of 
pudding and gravy twopence. I counted over one hundred, 
from the little match boy to .the industrious mechanic and 
his wife, enjoying the various cheap dishes at this place 
Saturday afternoon. 



LEEDS-'' IN MY EXPEBIENCE NEVER:' 143 

The manufacturing quarters of the city are a grade higher 
than Kirkgate. In the neighborhood of the iron works the 
hands live in small houses, consisting of one general room, 
a scullery, and a couple of bed-rooms, for which they pay at 
least one seventh, sometimes one-sixth, of their weekly earn- 
ings. The actual earnings of a skilled workman rarely 
reach $6 25, and seldom ever exceed $7 50. He lives on the 
coarsest food ; bacon at sixteen cents a pound, bullock's liver 
or heart at ten cents and twelve cents a pound, potatoes and 
bread and tea. Cabbage is the only vegetable within his 
means besides potatoes. After the food has been bought 
and the groceries and the rent paid, and the club dues and 
the Burial Society and the Trades Union dues paid, he has 
hardly anything left to buy clothing. It matters little to 
the workmen here what the prices of clothes are ; he cannot 
afford to do any more than keep his family shod, and if they 
are girls keep them in cotton gowns — both of which articles 
of clothing are no cheaper here than in the United States, 
excepting possibly in cases (not infrequent) where wooden 
shoes are worn. 

Inspector Thomas W. Wheatley, for over fifteen years 
connected with the Leeds police force, and for nearly eight 
years of that time Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory 
Schools, and whose duty during the whole period of his ser- 
vice was to ascertain the earnings of mill operatives and 
other artisans, for the use of the courts in assessing what 
proportion the parents should pay for their children, said 
that in his eight years' experience the highest average 
wages he ever met with for skilled labor were to a manager 
and foreman of a glass bottle works, who received 36s., or, 
say, $9, a week and house free— equivalent to about $11 a 
week. This man had seven children, age four months, two 
years, four years, six years, eight years, ten years, and 
twelve years, respectively. The Inspector's books contain 
fair samples of what the working classes actually receive ; 
for that is what I construe wages to be, and not the state- 
ments of interested parties. I will take a few samples, all 



144 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

of which have been obtained with sufficient accuracy to be 
sworn to in court. In each case the statement of the artisan 
has been corroborated by the employer: 

** William Foster: Felter, cloth-mill; average weekly 
earnings, 16s., or less than four dollars; wife, two children, 
age three and seven years ; pays 2s. 3d. a week for rent. 

^' James Gill: Cloth warehouseman; wages 30s., or seven 
dollars and a half, a week ; wife and three children, three, 
four, and six years of age; pays 5s., or $1.25, a week rent, 
and 2s. a week for boy in reformatory. 

** William Porter: laborer; weekly earnings 18s., or 
less than four dollars and a half; wife and one child; paid 
3s. 4d., or 83 cents a week for rent." 

Inspector Wheatley says that from his experience of 
fifteen years he should have no hesitancy in swearing that 
the average actual earnings of laboring men in Leeds were 
18s. a week, or less than four dollars and a half ; that they 
would under the most favorable circumstances not work 
over fifty weeks in the year. 

**JoHN Eydall: miller; widower, two children; earn- 
ings 20s., or less than five dollars a week; lives in lodgings 
at 13s., or $3.25 a week; both children in industrial school. 

** James Wilson: engine tender; wife and four children ; 
weekly wages 25s., or about six dollars; pays 3s. 6d., or 88 
cents, a week rent. 

*^Emma Miller: carpet-maker; two children, nine and 
sixteen years of age; eldest girl earns, on average, 5s. a 
week in mills; in full work earns 14s. herself; total less 
than five dollars ; pays 3s. a week rent. 

*'M. Barrett: cloth-dresser; wife and four children, age 
five, six, nine, and twelve years; the eldest child earned 
3s. a week ; father's average weekly earnings 16s. 9d. ; total 
earnings less than five dollars, with two working. 

^'Patrick Chills: Glazier: wife and five children, age 
seven, nine, fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen years; three 
children working, earning respectively 3s. 6d., 6s. and 8s.; 
father's earnings uncertain, from 10s. to 20s. ; the total 



THE NORTHEEN COAL AND IRON DISTRICT. 145 

earnings of the entire family rarely exceeding seven dollars 
and a half, four working ; they all lived together in a p©or 
house ; rent 3s. 3d. a week. 

*' Thomas Horsfann: Mason; wife and one child; wages 
27s., or over six dollars a week; rent 4s." 

These are samples, hundreds of which could be given. 
They were selected at random by the Inspector from his 
books, and represent the real earnings of the British work- 
man in this thrifty part of England. 

''In your fifteen years' experience," I said to Inspector 
Wheatley, "in which your jurisdiction has extended all 
over the borough of Leeds, embracing, as it does, 320,000 of 
the most thrifty industrial population in England, did you 
ever know the ordinary workingman to own the house in 
which he lived, and the ground on which it stands? I mean 
the skilled artisan, the mechanic, the engineer, the carpen- 
ter, the mason, and the Uke." 

''If I was on my oath in court, sir," earnestly replied the 
Inspector, "I should be obliged to answer, in my experi- 
ence, never 1" 



XL. 

The Northern Coal and Iron District. 

I COME now to a district which in 1880 produced 36,000,000 
tons of the 147,000,000 tons of coal produced in the United 
Kingdom, or one-quarter of all the coal; and over 6,000,000 
tons of the 18,000,000 tons of iron ore produced in the 
United Kingdom in that year, or more than one-third of all 
the iron ore. The relative importance of this district in its 
production of pig-iron may be seen from the following state- 
ment of the output for 1882, given me this morning by Mr. 
Edward Williams, president of the Iron and Steel Associa- 
tion of Great Britain: 
10 



146 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



TOTAL PRODUCTION OF PIG-IRON FOR 1882. 



District. Tons. 

Cleveland.... 2,688,650 

Scotland 1,126,000 

West Cumberland 1,001,181 

South Wales 883,305 

North Wales 48,713 

South Staffordshire .... 398, 443 
North Staffordshire .... 317,117 

Lincolnshire 201,561 

Lancashire 782, 739 



District, Tons. 

Northamptonshire, 192,115 

West and South York- 
shire 279,253 

Derbyshire and Notts.. 445,735 

Shropshire 

Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, 80,475 
etc 48,000 



Total 8,493,287 



Within this region, which is full of interest and of econo- 
mic importance to Americans, is the great northern coal- 
fields of Durham and Northumberland, the oldest worked 
mines in England, as yet to-day the most prolific. This 
area, comprising an exposed coal-field of 460 square miles 
and a concealed area of 225 square miles, possesses some of 
the most important coal-seams worked in Great Britain. 
The rivers Blythe, Tyne and Wear naturally give their 
names to the three great divisions of the coal-field. As will 
be seen by the little map which I have drawn to accompany 
this letter, the Blythe coal-field, the Tyne coal-field, and the 
Wear coal-field are really one, extending from near Wark- 
worth, at the mouth of the river Coquet, on the north, to 
near the north bank of the Tees (within six miles of Barnard 
Castle) on the south — an expanse of nearly fifty miles in 
length by twenty miles in breadth; its greatest diameter 
being near the center, along the course of the river Tyne, 
narrowing in the north after passing the river Blythe. 
From the Coquet, near Warkworth, to the river Tyne, the 
North Sea limits the coal-field to the east. 

To mine the 35,000,000 tons of coal annually produced in 
this district, in 1880, 95,000 persons were engaged, making 
an average of about one ton of coal per day for each man, 
or 365 tons a year if we include Sunday. Of the 95,000 
about 76,500 are employed under ground. Wages have 
fluctuated in the last twenty years as greatly as the price of 



THE NORTHERN COAL AND IRON DISTRICT 147 

coal, which averaged in London coal markets in 1860 18s. 
4d. or $4.60 a ton, to 30s. 9d. or $7.70 a ton in 1873, and grad- 
ually decreased until the average price for the year 1880 was 
14s. lid., or about $3.75 a ton. A sliding scale has been 
adopted by which the price per ton paid the men varies with 
the market price — a maximum and minimum rate being 
fixed. So great have been the fluctuations that in the last 
decade both of these rates have been reached. According 
to the employer's information the miners, in 1870, were paid 
4s. 8d. or $1.12 a day for an average output of 4.67 tons of 
coal, and 4s. 8id. in 1878, or a farthing more, for an average 
output of 4.02 tons, being a decrease of 16 per cent in the 
quantity of work done for the same wages. Certain it is 
that the earnings in this dangerous and disagreeable work 
do not exceed at the present time, 5s. or $1.20 a day for a 
steady day's work. The available coal remaining in this 
great Northern coal-field is estimated at upward of ten 
thousand millions of tons. At the present rate of production 
the supply will last 280 years. 

So much for the coal supply of this district. Now for the 
Cleveland iron mines, which are included in the area I am 
considering. The existence of an iron ore on the northeast- 
ern coast of Yorkshire appears to have been long known ; 
indeed the constant discovery of iron slag on the hills of 
Cleveland shows that ores were worked in remote antiquity. 
About thirty years ago local iron-masters began to employ 
the Cleveland ore to supplement the supply of ores to their 
furnaces. It answered well and soon it was found that the 
Cleveland hills were full of iron. Then began that remark- 
able development of the district which reminds one more of 
the development of the industrial towns of the United States 
than of anything in the history of British industry. From 
a place of 7,000 people in 1851, Middleborough has in thirty 
years leaped to 60,000, and the whole surrounding district is 
a marvel of industrial energy. The area of the Cleveland 
hills containing the deposits of iron ores extend on the 
northern escarpment from Ormesby, near Middleborough, 



148 



BBE AD WINNERS ABROAD. 



to the coast, and southerly to the Eskadale and Eosedale val- 
leys, the workable portion of the ore being found most fully 
developed in the northwett portion of the area, diminishing 
both in the thickness of the beds and the quality of the ore 
in the south and eastern part of the area. The growth of 
this region has been unparalleled. Commencing with the 
year 1854, when returns of production first appear, 650,000 
tons of ironstone were raised in the Cleveland district. Two 
years later it had increased to 1,148,488. At home the de- 
velopment of the Lake Superior district is regarded as 
remarkable, but the following table, which I have compiled 
from A. P. Swineford's statistics of the Lake Superior 
mines, or for the Cleveland mines from John Marley's 
Memoir on Cleveland Ironstone, etc., shows the magnitude 
and richness of the Cleveland hills even when compared 
with the Lake Superior Iron Eegion. 



Years. 



1858 
1859 
1860 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1874 
1875 
1876 
1877 
1878 
1879 
1880 



Production in 

Tons of Iron Ore, 

Lake Superior 

District. 



Gross Tons. 

22,876 

68,832 

114,401 

114,258 

124,169 

203,055 

247,059 

193,758 

296,713 

465,504 

510,522 

639,097 

859,507 

813,984 

948,553 

1,195,234 

935,488 

910,840 

993,311 

1,025,129 

1,125,093 

1,414,182 

1,987,598 



Production in 
Tons of Iron Stone, 
Cleveland District. 



Gross Tons. 

1,367,395 

1,520,342 

1,471,319 

1,242,514 

1,689,966 

2,078,806 

2,401,890 

2,762,359 

2,809,061 

2,739,039 

2,785,307 

3,094,678 

4,072,888 

4,581,901 

4,974,950 

5,617,014 

5,614,322 

6,121,794 

6,562,000 

6,284,545 

5,605,639 

4,750,000 

6,486,654 



A VAST MONOPOLY. 149 

Until the year 1873 the number of persons employed in 
the Cleveland district was not accurately known. That 
year, according to the report of Her Majesty's Inspectors of 
Mines, 9,350 men were employed, 6,947 of whom worked 
underground The average for each man employed was 
then 581 tons per year ; it now exceeds 800 tons. The total 
number of hands employed in 1880 was only 7,972, yet 
nearly two million tons more ore was raised. This, Mr. 
Edward WilHams told me, was largely^ brought about by 
the economy of labor in the way of improved machinery, 
and was hastened on account of the demand for labor in 
this district, and its consequent high price when extensive 
operations were begun twenty years ago. The average 
wages paid here, as in the great northern coal district, fluctu- 
ate with the price of iron, 5s. 6d. or $1.32 per day as a mini- 
mum rate, increasing plus 10 per cent plus 15 per cent or 
plus 20 per cent, or retarding, as iron advances or decreases 
in price. Mr. Edward Williams agrees with the tariff Com- 
mission report in the fact that iron rails are doomed to ulti- 
mate disuse, but he says it is no less true that Cleveland 
has fairly started the manufacture of steel rails from its 
native iron that are bound to become the cheapest in the 
world. 



XLI. 
A Vast Monopoly. 



I SHOULD hardly be credited in some quarters if I were to 
say that this immense iron district which I have attempted 
to describe, is one of the most absolute monopoUes in the 
world. I will therefore merely quote the following from an 
address of the president of the Iron and Steel Institute of 
Great Britain : 

'^The firm of Messrs. Bolckow & Vaughn, who were the 
pioneers of the Cleveland iron trade, and who now produce 



150 BBEAB-WmNEBS ABROAD. 

one-third of the total quantity of iron produced in the dis- 
trict, have also taken the lead in the establishment of steel 
works." 

One-third of the amount produced in this district. 

What does that mean? 

My table shows that it means an amount of iron ore far 
exceeding the total product of the entire Lake Superior dis- 
trict in 1880. 

The fact is, people in the United States have no concep- 
tion of the vastness of the monopolies in England. A few 
firms control this entire district; own every acre of it. 

What does that mean? 

It means the control of an acre of ironstone of 420 square 
miles, with an average yield per acre of 20,000 tons and 
estimated contents of five thousand milHon of tons of iron 
ore. I have already shown the amount of coal yet in the 
great adjacent northern coal field to be ten thousand mil- 
lions of tons, so that there is sufficient fuel in the coal dis- 
trict to smelt the main seam of iron ore in the other. 

This district is capable of supplying the world with steel 
rails for a couple of centuries to come, controlled by a few 
wealthy men, capable, if the barriers of foreign tariffs were 
removed, of crushing out the steel interests of every country 
on the globe, and of then controlling the world's markets 
and prices. The truth of the monopoly is substantiated by 
the president of the Iron and Steel Association, of Great 
Britain and by a visit to the district ; the truth of capacity 
in wealth of coal and iron and economy of manufacture by 
the best scientists. Comment is not necessary. Let every 
one judge from the facts I present. 

And yet the manager of the firm producing one-third of 
this immense output calmly sat down with me and unblush- 
ingly talked of ^*the grinding monopolies of the United 
States preventing the free importation of steel rails, " and 
actually spoke disparagingly of " such an otherwise sensible 
man" as the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt for hi^ "' absurd protec- 
tion heresies." 



ENGLAND'S COAL AND IRON FIELDS. ]51 

It did not seem to occur to Mm that the iron manufact- 
urers of England are worth milhons of pounds, while Amer- 
ican manufacturers are worth millions of dollars; the 
British iron districts are crowded within an area of a hun- 
dred square miles, while America's spread over a vast con- 
tinent, every State producing iron ore; the manufacturies 
of England are controlled, as I have shown in the Cleveland 
district, by a few enormous capitahsts, the annual product of 
one firm alone exceeding that of the entire Lake Superior 
district, while American iron and steel industries are scat- 
tered over a continent, giving employment and building up 
towns in the agricultural districts, and making more perma- 
nent the progress of the mining States ; it is an exception in 
England to find a situation in which the ore and the coal 
and the coke and the limestone are separated 100 miles, 
while in America 1,000 miles very often intervene. From 
the ore mines of Lake Superior and Missouri to the coal of 
Pennsylvania is 1,000 miles; Connellsville coke is taken 600 
miles to the blast furnaces of Chicago, and 750 miles to the 
blast furnaces of St^ Louis. The average distance over 
which all domestic iron ore which is consumed in the blast 
furnaces of the United States is transported is not less than 
400 miles, and the average distance over which the fuel used 
to smelt it is transported is not less than 200 miles. And 
yet here, within a rectangle of 75 miles by 30 miles and a 
square of 40 miles, is produced over one-third of England's 
annual ore supply and one-fifth of her annual coal supply. 



XLII. 

England's Coal and Iron Fields. 

The following map, which I have drawn to a scale of thirty 
miles to the inch, shows at a glance the proximity of the 
great Northumberland and Durham coal fields and iron 



163 BREAD -WINNEES ABBOAD. 

mines to the Cleveland district ironstone mines, together 
with the location of thirty of the principal towns. When 
the limited area covered by this map is considered it brings 
out more forcibly than words the geographical advantages 
enjoyed by England in the manufacture of iron. The im- 
portant places of this region contain nearly 900,000 inhabit- 
ants, and, I suppose, taking the rural and urban districts to- 
gether, the population would far exceed a million. It may 
justly be called one of Great Britain's great mining, manu- 
facturing and shipping districts. 

Population. Population. 

Brinkburn.. 5,000 Redcar 3,000 

Bellingham 5,000 Marske 2,000 

Morpeth 4,500 Saltburn 2,000 

Blytii 2,000 Guisborough 7,000 

Tynemouth 45,000 Middlesborough 60,000 

North Shields 10,000 Stockton 42,000 

South Shields 58,000 South Stockton 11,000 

Newcastle 150,000 Darlington 36,000 

Gateshead 68,000 Bosedale 4,000 

Sunderland 120,000 Whitby 14,000 

Durham 15,000 Thirsk 4,000 

Allenhead 4,000 Bishop-Auckland 10,000 

Stanhope 4,000 Barnard Castle 5,000 

Hartlepool 17,000 Scarborough 30,000 

West Hartlepool 28,000 

Weardale 5,000 Total 870,500 

The statistics I have already given sufficiently attest the 
importance of the region embraced in the above map. Sev- 
eral of the cities mentioned in it, and at least three of the 
rivers, the Tyne, the Wear and the Tees, are important 
enough for a special letter. In concluding this general ac- 
count, I shall attempt a brief description of by no means the 
least important feature of the region covered by the map — 
the ports of the Tyne, the Wear and the Tees. 

Beginning at Newcastle, it has been aptly said that for six 
miles along the Tyne there is absolutely not a break in the 
connected links of industry. The finest view of Newcastle 
can be obtained on the high bridge across the Tyne. Stand- 



ENGLAND'S GOAL AND IBON FIELDS, 



153 



ing on this magnificent structure, on the right is Gateshead, 
picturesque in stern defiance of the gloom and grime of its 
waterside buildings, with tall chimneys in the distance rear- 
ing their heights out of acres of huddled and rickety tene- 
ments; every chimney contributing something to the fog 



EX FLARATtQ W, 

Coal' Measires^*G«,.,^^p 




3" 



IQ 



30 



m 



of dark vapor that blows away to the southward. On the 
left is Newcastle, says one enthusiastic eye-witness of this 
busy scene, the famous lantern-tower of its cathedral church 
conspicuous above the roofs, with a river-flanking of tall, 
handsome, modem buildings, spacious offices, gradually 
softening down near Sandgate into ancient relics of the bor- 



154 



BBEAD WINNERS ABROAD, 



ough— gable-roofed houses with old-fashioned red tiles— the 
whole overlooking a fine quay, on which from the bridge 
you may see active groups of merchants, 'Change men, 
clerks, laborers, mixed up with bales of merchandise, rail- 
way sleepers, timber, casks of American apples, cases of pro- 
visions, cheeses, and grindstones and herds of cattle. Flow- 
ing beneath, mud-colored and sometimes with a current that 
gurgles harshly around the massive piers, is the river, ahve 
with craft of all kinds, screw-steamers, tugs screaming and 
darting to and fro, or toiling along with a string of barges 
in their wake, steamers newly launched, tall, gaunt and 
bare, in spite of their ugly livery of slate and red, colliers as 
black as the faces of the crew, who lounge around the gal- 
leys, and large sailing ships abreast of the huge grain ware- 
houses. Such is the scene on the busiest of these rivers. 

*'To do the Wear justice, in such a hght, in such an at- 
mosphere, on such a day as I saw it," said a gentleman who 
was there in the same month as I was, ^'requires the brush 
of a Turner." Figure a slate-colored river reflecting a long, 
tremorless beam of light from the red and rayless sun shin- 
ing luridly through the smoke and fog that overhang the 
sky in the west ; shores on either hand flanked with factor- 
ies, yards, works with furnaces roaring, gigantic outlines of 
ships looming upon the stocks, huge vessels newly launched 
lying abreast of the yards, lines of starths pouring hundreds 
of tons of coal into the bottoms of steamers and saihng col- 
liers, rows of coalmen at anchor in the stream, tugs towing 
ships to sea, or with iron shells of steamers in their wake, 
with always the chimneys of iron works, breweries, bottle 
works, cement works, saw mills, pouring their coils of smoke 
along and producing the very fittest atmospheric effects in 
the world in which to survey this striking scene of human 
industry. Such is the Wear near Sunderland. 



SUNDERLAND AND HARTLEPOOL. 155 

XLIII. 

Sunderland and Hartlepool. 

Said a citizen of Sunderland: ^^ At the present moment 
our town is unsurpassed on the northeast coast as a ship- 
building port. Vessels 400 feet long have already been 
launched on the Wear, and there is nothing to hinder vessels 
of the largest size being turned out from many of our yards 
here. Before long I believe Sunderland will have the dis- 
tinction of being the largest ship-building port in the world 
as regards both size and number of vessels." 

According to a gentleman who had lived in Sunderland all 
his life, the town as it now exists is the creation of the three 
great industries of the northeastern coast —coal, iron and 
ship-building. It was originally three small places— Sunder- 
land-by-the-Sea, on the south; Monk Wearmouth, on the 
north, and Bishop Wearmouth, on the south side of the 
river, a mile up. They are now one town, with a diameter 
of two miles in any direction, and with a population of 
120,000. Sunderland is surrounded by the Durham CoUiery 
villages, and is the great outlet for its coal. I spent the 
best part of one day there. It has the narrowest streets of 
aU towns I know of, excepting, perhaps, Great Yarmouth, 
where the people shake hands across the street from the 
windows of the upper floors. The people of Sunderland, it 
is said, are constantly engaged in trying to push one 
another out of the road ; in fact, life in Sunderland, judging 
from my own experience as well as that of others, is made 
up of a very great deal of shoving and pushing. 

Saturday nights, they say, no other town in the Kingdom 
can show such crowded streets. Pitmen, mechanics and the 
working classes of Durham generally are on the streets, and 
as the dense streams surge uphill or down, salutations are 
exchanged in hoarse shouts and accents, which defy the pen. 
A description of the Music Hall, at Sunderland, is even more 



156 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

amusing and characteristic than the picture I gave of the 
'' Theatre Koyal, Coatbridge." It is narrow, Hke the streets, 
garnished with gilt, and the wooden divisions painted red. 
In these little boxes, it is said, the grocer-boy and the 
draper's assistant, with his pocket full of penny Havanas, 
can squeeze the hand of his ^'Soosan" without exciting the 
ribaldry of the gallery, which is generally made up wholly 
of boys with blackened noses and open mouths. Dingy 
gray and brown coats, topped with ' ' wideawakes " and 
'^biUy cocks," beneath the brims of which peep clay pipes, 
comprise the pit assemblage. When the lady in tights sang 
^' O, H'lm Fond of a Squeeze on the Sly," and the Sunder- 
land audience were pleased, they showed it not in hilarious 
and unseemly applause, but as the singer withdrew, matches 
were struck in all directions and the pit was again enveloped 
in smoke. Such is Saturday night in an English mining 
town. 

In Hartlepool on the north side of the Tees, besides ship- 
building are many rolling mills, iron works, blast furnaces, 
saw-mills, cement works, potteries, bottle works, marine 
engine works, and creosoting works, some belonging to com- 
panies and some to private firms. The salt industry of Bell 
Brothers and others has a great future, I was told. Thirty- 
five years ago West Hartlepool had no existence; since then 
a flourishing town, teeming with population, has arisen 
upon a barren tract of coast land, and a port has been 
created ' ' second to none for its docks, situation and access- 
ibility," and with steamers running to Hamburg, Gothen- 
burg, New York, Boston and London. 

I will close with a view of Middlesborough and the Tees 
from the summit of a blast-furnace, a gigantic structure 
eighty feet high, which seem to abound on all sides. It is 
graphically described by one who ventured up this giddy 
height. From such an eminence you look forth upon a 
panorama or map of scientific wonders. Far below was the 
broad river coiling steadily seaward; on the right is Mid- 
dlesborough, scores of tall chimneys rising out of the houses, 




MIDDLESBOROUGH—AN AMERICAN GROWTH. 157 

shipyards on the water's edge crowded with fabrics, a por- 
tion of the famous works which I have said produced one- 
third of the iron ore of this region, darkening and deepening 
the massive conformation of the district with their rugged, 
black, massive grouping, every outhne of which seemed to 
be tinged with the scarlet of furiously blown furnaces, 
steamers alongside the wharves receiving their ponderous 
freights of pig-iron, fiames breaking from tower-like struc- 
tures in the distance, and a horizon of chimneys, always 
chimneys, intercepted by the spars and yards of ships in the 
docks. In another direction on this side were the Anders- 
ton Foundry Works, and beyond them, on the left, across 
the water, another portion of Middlesborough, with spires, 
chimneys, wharves, flour mills, rolling mills in the misty 
distance, St. Hilda's Church towering above the roofs, and 
spots of color between furnished by the painted funnels of 
tugs and cargo-boats. And all this activity and wealth 
within the area described in our map. Well may Americans 
marvel at the economic greatness of England. In this letter 
I have not only endeavored to give a bird's-eye view of the 
greatest coal and iron region in the world from an economic 
standpoint, but alike to picture its three great rivers and the 
centres of industrial energy that its geographical and geolo- 
gical richness has brought into existence — and the greater 
part within the memory of the present generation. 



XLIV. 

MroDLESBOROUGH— An American Growth. 

A few days ago at a dinner of the directors of the North 
Eastern Eailroad Company at York, I had the pleasure of 
meeting among other gentlemen Sir Joseph W. Pease, M. P. 
One of the guests had told me that part of Sir Joseph's estate 
was where Middlesborough now stood, and as I was then on 



158 BEE AB -WINNERS ABROAD, 

my way to the most important centre of iron mining and 
steel and iron manufacture in the world, I asked Sir Joseph 
some questions about the origin of Middlesborough. He told 
me the whole history of Middlesborough was written in the 
lives of three or four men, one of whom was his father, the 
late Mr. Joseph Pease. Within the recollection of men now 
living the first shipment of coal took place. 

Said Sir Joseph, with much earnestness: ^^In the Christ- 
mas of 1832 John Vaughn, Henry Bolckow, and Joseph 
Pease met in a little room I know well in Pilgrim street, 
Newcastle. I doubt if one of them supposed that that which 
they agreed to do was to make Middlesborough— then a 
marsh by the side of a river— a port, a mart of nations, and 
for a time at least the most important iron and steel centre 
in the world." 

There are men living who can go back to the days when 
cattle housed where the town now stands, and when the 
solitude of this part of the Tees was only broken by gray- 
headed seals and shrimping women. To-day Middlesborough 
has to do with ^'pig" puddlers and a growing population, 
the latter now having reached 60,000. The venerable and 
venerated antiquity of the place is wisely conserved in the 
neighboring town of Whitby, which in the midst as it were 
of this surprising modernization boasts an ancient abbey 
built in 1130. — I can not venture further into the history of 
Middlesborough. To make these letters what they claim to 
be, an industrial series, I must hasten on to a bird's-eye view 
of the British coal and iron and steel trade, its present con- 
dition and tendency. 

After all, Middlesborough is but a new town — a very new 
town for England. Though it has 60,000 inhabitants, it has 
not a directory. The whole history of the district is recent 
and there has really been so much modest silence about it 
that a stranger may be excused for singing its praises. The 
town seems to be literally surrounded with mountains of 
slag, and only about 45,000,000 tons of iron raised so far. 
What will it be when the 5,000,000,000 tons yet remaining is 



MIDDLESBOROUGH—AN AMERICAN GROWTH. 159 

raised and smelted by the aid of the 10,000,000,000 tons of 
coal in the adjacent great northern coal-field ? To-day, says 
one writer, describing Middlesborough, the whole place 
seems surrounded by the refuse of smelted ironstone. And 
he is right — immensely long embankments of it, ravines and 
gorges formed of it, such as you may see in a country of tall 
hills ; acres of land over which the sea or river recently 
washed, now reclaimed, cultivated, built on; here a vast 
area of buildings erected by the new North-Eastern Steel 
Works Company; there the Britannia Eolling Mills, barely 
visible in the thunder-storm of smoke— flashed up now and 
again with the darting of furnace fires — that rolls from their 
numberless chimneys ; in another place more dense smoke, 
fringed with volumes of white steam, with red flames rest- 
lessly playing among the piebald folds, and everywhere slag 
— slag as high as it can be piled, slag defining the river's 
winding, slag like huge lumps of brown rock, with locomo- 
tives rushing along its levelled tops ; slag in steep cliffs, cov- 
ered with great red palpitating patches of it fresh from the 
furnaces, and just now tipped over by the engines and 
bogies, which all day long, and all night too, are ratthng 
and screeching to and fro in discharge of this duty. And 
away in the hazy distance one can see the outUne of the 
Cleveland Hills, the iron acchvities from whose side Mid- 
dlesborough and its wonderful industries have sprung. 

I have been over the Cambria, the Edgar Thomson, and 
the great Chicago Bessemer Steel Mills, but the works at 
Middlesborough all exceed them. I borrow the following 
description of a scene at Bolckow's Works ; it is the most 
graphic I ever read : 

My memory recalls an entrance guarded by a policeman 
of a severer aspect than any that I can remember encounter- 
ing in a London constable ; a vast surface of railway metals, 
over which one must jump with the agihty of a fawn to 
escape the numerous locomotives which rush to and fro in 
shoals ; an immense interior, full of huge roaring flames of 
sun-bright brilliancy — of fires rushing from the converters 



160 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

under the furious tempests of wind driven into them by 
mighty engines, scattering immense showers of sparks, Hck- 
ing the iron heights of the building with their serpentine 
tongues, sometimes of a deep scarlet hue, sometimes of a 
beautiful dazzling green, sometimes so white, bhnding and 
ardent that in the enormous gushes of effulgence the numer- 
ous electric sparks which illuminate the building faint and 
glimmer like mere glow-worms; a floor covered with rail- 
ways, along which little locomotives— mere toy engines in 
size — go pushing or dragging wagons, or bogies, or trucks, or 
whatever their name may be, full of molten palpitating 
metal, or gigantic lumps of red-hot steel; on high, great bell- 
shaped retorts swinging slowly, and as they swing spilling 
torrents of white-hot slag amid volumes of smoke and steam 
and avalanches of sparks; and ever and anon stooping their 
brows, as it might appear, in their stately, solemn vibration 
to expose their interior of fluid steel, the terriflc light of 
which is so blinding that the pained eye droops before the 
volcanic fires as it would before the noon-tide sun. 



XLV. 

MmDLESBOROUGH— Among the Iron Workers. 

** Jump into my carriage," said Dr. Hedley, one of the 
leading surgeons and physicians of Middlesborough, *^and I 
will show you the town and some of my patients, about 
twenty of those I shall visit this afternoon being workmen." 

I thanked the Doctor cordially for his kindness, and we 
were soon at the door of the first house. Middlesborough, 
in some regards, is not unhke an American city, being newly 
built and the streets running at right angles. There are few 
really fine buildings and no handsome shops. The work- 
people, comprising almost the entire pepulation of the city, 
live in straight rows of chocolate-colored brick houses, built 
with painful regularity. Some of these rows are larger than 



MIDDLESBOROUGH— AMONG THE IB0N-W0BKEB8. 161 

others, but rows they are, and chocolate-colored they are, 
all the same for that. The streets look black and are entirely 
destitute of trees. The first house we entered was that of a 
man employed in the chemical works. His wife was just 
recovering from a long illness. They had six children, mak- 
ing in all a family of eight. The house contained one gen- 
eral room, a scullery, and two small bed-rooms up-stairs. 
On the clean red tile floor of the general room was a mat and 
near the white hearth a rag hearth-rug, making a neat and 
cosey contrast with the well-blacked stove and cheerful fire. 
Her husband, the woman told us, had worked hard at the 
neighboring chemical works, and was a sober, industrious 
man, but of course'they had not saved anything. His wages 
amounted to £1 or $5 one week, and 30s. or $7.50 the next, 
making an average per week, if he lost no tim«, of 25s. or 
about $6.25. He was a skilled workman. 

The next place was that of an Irish family. Though it was 
a cold day, there was no fire in the general room and hardly 
any furniture. On the wall was a common print of President 
Garfield in his general's uniform, draped with the Stars and 
Stripes, a couple of prints representing epochs in the life of 
the Prodigal Son, and a fair engraving of the Deluge. A 
few canaries in a large wooden cage were the only occupants 
of the room, whtch was cold, desolate and depressing. In 
all I visited about twenty of the work-people's cottages. 
Some were very cosey and others almost like pig-sties. The 
place being newly built, and all the house letting for single 
famihes, and the operatives of all kinds earning very fair 
wages, at one time even very high wages for England, there 
was no need for wretchedness and squalor, where the people 
were sober and industrious. 

I caU to mind one house which was particularly comfort- 
able, and both Dr. Hedley and myself sat and chatted with 
the occupants for fifteen minutes. True, the house was on 
the general-room-two-bed-room-and-scuUery plan, but for all 
that there was such a general air of home-comfort in the 
, high-backed, well-cushioned arm-chairs, the glowing fire 
8 



162 BBEAB^WINNERS ABROAD. 

crackling in the blackest of stoves and whitest of hearths, 
the cheerful colored prints from The Illustrated London 
News and Graphic neatly framed, the family Bible on the 
little centre table, the green foliage of the plants in the 
window, the bright brass candlesticks and the glass orna- 
ments on the high black mantel, the housewife in her neat 
gown busy at needle work, and the snowy anti-macassars on 
the rather upright and stiff sofa, demonstrated how much 
comfort could be got out of these houses with the right kind 
of wife. 

*'It is a pity," said the Doctor as we bade the occupants 
of the house good-day, ^^that so many women are utterly 
neglectful of their husband's comfort. With a tempting 
arm-chair at his own hearth, and a neat wife, a man enjoys 
his pipe and pint of beer at home better than at the public 
house." 

In this trip I made the most careful inquiries in regard to 
the "actual earnings of the iron-workers, and found that the 
average earnings of ^^slaggers" was 4s. 4d., or $1.04 a 
day; of mine-fillers 4s. 8d., or $1.12; of ^'charges" 5s. 3d. 
to 5s. 6d., or about $130 per day, and *' keepers" 6s. 6d. 
to 7s., or $1.50 per day. These figures are absolutely 
trustworthy, and were corroborated in every case, and 
taken down in the presence of Dr. Hedley. Laborers 
are paid in'Middlesborough 3s. to 3s. 2d., or about 80 cents 
per day; but I found several laboring men who said they 
only received 2s. 8d., or 64 cents per day. House rents 
vary from as low as 2s. 6d. a week to 5s. and some of the 
better houses 7s. 6d. a week. The latter houses are occupied 
by foremen and men earning say $7.50 a week, and who 
perhaps have one or more children employed in the neigbor- 
ing works or factories. Men working in the Bessemer pits 
are paid from 5s. 6d. to 6s., or about $1.50 per day. 

The shops in Middlesborough are of a cheap order and the 
goods displayed mostly such as attract working-people. 
Wednesday is half-holiday and most of the tradesmen put 
up their shutters and amuse themselves in some way, but 



MIDDLESBOROUGH— AMONG THE IBON-WOBKERS. 163 

just how I don't know. There is in the evening the ^'Ox- 
ford Palace Variety Hall," with a young lady who will sing 
*' Oh Isn't it Nice to Make Believe !" or the '' Theatre Royal/' 
with the drama of *' Taken from Life," and, on swell occa- 
sions, even Madame Roze at the Temperance Hall, but such 
a prima donna is a rare treat. The windows of some of the 
stationers' and book-sellers' shops remind one of the days of 
the old Catnach press, when hoarse-voiced ruflSans bawled 
the ^* last dying speech and confession" of the culprit at the 
foot of the gallows before the poor wretch's life was extin- 
guished; when the ''last tragedy "was sold on the street 
corner in a dodger of twelve by eight, and when the news 
was not infrequently sung in doggerel on the street corner. 
In these shops the "Bradford Chimney Calamity," the 
"Hull Murder," the "Hounslow Tragedy," in verse, may 
be bought for a half -penny, while the windows are filled 
with the cheapest and vilest of literature. 

The members of the Town Council have an odd way of 
thanking voters for their support at elections, and one that 
might offend the "free-bom citizen of America." At any 
rate few American Aldermen would care to paste a placard, 
three feet by two, on every house in a long row, in an Am- 
erican city, as is ngt infrequently done at Middlesborough ; 
and in this way I read that that Mr, Raylton Dixon "re- 
turns his most hearty thanks for the support of the free- 
holders of Middlesborough at the recent borough election," 
etc. Trains run through the heart of the town. There is a 
good deal of drunkenness; some years 500 and even 600 per- 
sons being arrested for this offense, exceeding in this gloomy 
pre-eminence Bradford, with 120, 000 more population. Wife- 
beating and assaults on women are every-day crimes, and a 
morning spent in the pohce court revealed some of the most 
brutahzed men and women I ever met with. I was aston- 
ished at the light sentences for beating and maiming women. 

The public houses and beer-shops dispense beer and gin to 
parents week-days, and after sending the father reehng 
home on Saturday night, give candy to the children on Sun- 



164 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

day. An enormous placard, with an elephant, outside one 
of these gin-mills, says : ^ 'Jumbo just arrived from America ; 
come and see him ; no charge," and when the youngster goes 
in he finds a model of Jumbo, from whose mouth candy 
drops. Some of these beer-shops have '^Cetewayo" giv- 
ing away ''Zulu gifts;" others have monkeys who serve 
free candy, and children thus become familiarized with 
drinking and its attendant vices. 



XLYI. 

The Iron and Steel Trade of England. 

Last year was as gloomy and unprofitable for the iron and 
steel of free trade Great Britain as it was for this trade in 
protection America. The output of coal and iron ore has 
diminished considerably, but to what extent I am unable to 
say, as the oflScial figures are not completed. The total 
quantity of pig-iron during 1884 was 7,528,966 tons, against 
8,490,224 in the preceding year, a decrease of nearly one 
million tons. The total production of puddled bar was 
2,237,535 tons, against 2,730,504 in 1883, a decrease of nearly 
half a million tons. The total production of Bessemer steel 
ingots amounted to 1,299,516 tons, against a totaljof 1,553,380 
tons, a decrease of more than a quarter of a million of tons, 
the greatest decrease that has occurred in any one year of 
the trade. The production of steel rail fell from 1,097,174 
tons in 1883 to 784,968 tons in 1884, a decrease of over 
312,000 tons. But two branches of the coal and iron and 
steel industries show an increase — that of open-hearth steel 
(an increase of 6,465 tons over 1883), and that of tin-plate 
(the quantity produced in 1884 being larger than that of any 
previous year). The total exports of iron and steel from 
the United Kingdom in 1884 amounted to 3,496,352 tons, 
which is 546,956 tons under the export of the preceding year 
and about 650,000 tons under those of 1882. 



THE IRON AND STEEL TRADE OF ENGLAND. 165 

The two principal causes for this decline is the sudden 
stoppage in building railroads and ships. Jan. 1, 1882, the 
tonnage of ships in Great Britain in course of construction 
or contracted for was 1,264,603 tons. Jan. 1, 1885, there 
was only 373,898 tons. Can any change in any protection 
country be more sudden and more disastrous than this? 

The simple fact is, unless some avenue for using iron and 
steel be found the output must be curtailed, at any rate in 
the iron and steel exporting countries. Take for example 
steel rail making; in 1883 the production of steel rails stood 
as follows; 



Countries. Tons. 

United States 1,243,925 

United Kingdom 1,097,174 

Germany 505,123 

France 381,178 



Countries. Tons. 

Russia 230,000 

Belgium 173,000 

Austria— Hungary 120, 000 

Total for world 3,760,410 



Does any one ever pause to think of the world's consum- 
ing powers? In 1882 the total length of railways amounted 
to 247,529 miles, half of which mileage was in the United 
States. It is assumed that including sidings, double roads, 
etc., there are in the world 325,000 miles of single track, rep- 
resenting 35,000,000 tons of rails in use at the present time. 
If this was all iron, with a life of ten years, 3,500,000 tons of 
rail per annum would be needed for relaying, while in steel, 
competent authorities say one-half the quantity, or 1,750,000 
tons would be required. 

Without regarding the above as anything but an approxi- 
mation to the truth, the meaning is clear, to use the words 
of Mr. Bell, the President or the British Iron Trade Associa- 
tion, that *' it is even now open for consideration whether a 
diminishing demand for renewals is not already being felt." 

The lesson all these facts should convey to intelligent 
Americans, of whatever party and of whatever economic 
faith, is that with half the track of the world the United 
States has half the renewals — estimated on a steel basis at 
875,000 tons— and that at least for some time to come no 



166 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

other country will require more steel for railway extension 
than the United States. Our home market in this industry 
— equal to that of all the rest of the world — would seem a 
sufficient *^ world's market" for us just at present, and prob- 
ably as much as we are likely to obtain. 

If I were to be asked to give a brief account of the coal 
and iron and steel industries of England as they were at the 
close of 1884, 1 would reply as follows : To begin with. Great 
Britain produced about 160,000,000 tons of coal. Of this 
amount 21,000,000 tons were mined in Scotlond from coal 
fields that in one shape and another straggle from Ardros- 
san and Girvan on the west coast of Kilrenny and Leith on 
the east coast ; the great northern coal fields of Northum- 
berland and Durham supply 37,000,000 tons; the Lancashire 
coal fields 20,000,000 tons; Yorkshire, 19,000,000, tons; the 
Derbyshire coal fields, including a part of Nottinghamshire, 
14,000,000; Staffordshire, 14,000,000, and South Wales and 
Monmouthshire, 25,000,000 tons. Here in seven great coal 
districts I have accounted in round figures for 150,000,000 tons 
out of 160,000,000 tons of annual product. The remainder 
is scattered in a dozen different counties. 

What becomes of this enormous output of coal? 

England's continental neighbors are glad to take no incon- 
siderable part of it. France is the best customer, sometimes 
buying 4,500,000 tons annually; Scandinavia takes 3,000,000; 
Germany and Italy come next, each demanding about 2,- 
500,000 tons; Holland taking 500,000 tons, and so on until 
nearly 25,000,000 tons of the total output are sent abroad. 
Of the remainder about 18,000,000 are used in pig-iron man- 
ufacture alone, as against less than 8,000,000 tons in the 
United States. In 1883, 515,000 hands were employed in 
mining coal in the United Kingdom, 200,000 in the United 
States, 208,000 in Germany, 160,000 in France, and 104,000 
in Belgium. Much of the wealth of England comes from 
these seven great coal districts. 

Fifty years have produced a great change in the charac- 
ter of the minerals employed in the iron and steel work of 



THE IRON AND STEEL TRADE OF ENGLAND. 167 

Great Britain. The Derbyshire, the Glamorganshire, the 
Durham, and the South Staffordshire districts then fur- 
nished the ore. The Cleveland, Northamptonshire, and 
Lincolnshire iron-stone, now forming' half the total ore 
product of England, in 1830 found its way into about 5,000 
tons of iron, as against over 8,000,000 tons in 1883. In the 
twenty years ending 1883 the product of what may now be 
termed the five principal ore-producing districts increased 
8,738,014 tons, while the product in the four districts already 
named has decreased 1,600,000 tons in that period. The 
Cleveland and the Barrow districts— the former producing 
6,500,000 tons, a-nd the latter nearly 3,000,000— are in the 
front rank, followed by North Staffordshire with 1,750, 
000 tons, Northamptonshire with 1,300,000 tons, and Lin- 
colnshire with 1,100,000 tons. Here, if we include Scotland 
(2,250,000 tons), we have accounted for nearly 16,000,000 tons 
of the 17,500,000 tons of iron ore produced in England in 1883. 
Add to this about 3,000,000 tons imported, mostly from 
Spain and Italy, and you have 20,500,000 tons of ore, which 
for several years prior to 1884 Great Britain has consumed. 

The Bessemer pig-iron, aggregating in 1884 to something 
over 2,500,000 tons, all comes from the three Bessemer steel 
districts— Barrow, Cleveland, and South Wales. South 
Staffordshire stiU makes about 300,000 tons of forge and 
foundry iron, and Derbyshire produces from 375,000 to 
400,000 tons; North Staffordshire, 200,000 tons; South Wales 
about 250,000, and so on. Not only is the Cleveland district 
first in Bessemer pig, but also in forge and foundry iron, 
the output in 1884 exceeding 1,714,000 tons. Scotland pro- 
duces 1,000,000 tons of pig annually. Here I have accounted 
for about 6,350,000 tons of the total pig-iron product of the 
United Kingdom, which aggregated last year about 7,500,000 
tons. 

South Staffordshire, in 1884, led in the production of man- 
ufactured iron, though the preceding year the new steel 
district of Cleveland took precedence, producing that year 
nearly 800,000 tons of puddled bar, against about 720,000 for 



168 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

South Staffordshire. But the iron district in the less pros- 
perous year of 1884 did better than the steel district, the 
latter falling in its productions 285,000, tons, and the for- 
mer only 62,000 tons. These two districts make over half 
the puddled bar produced in the kingdom, the output last 
year being for the two districts 1,164,000 tons, and for the 
kingdom 2,237,535 tons. Lancashire comes next in import- 
ance, Scotland in 1884 fourth, South and West Yorkshire 
fifth. North Staffordshire sixth, and South Wales seventh. 
In these seven districts we have about 2,100,000 tons out of 
the 2,237,535 tons, the total product of last year. 

When Sir Henry Bessemer invented his process of steel- 
making Sheffield was the seat of the trade in England. 
Tradition had done much for Sheffield, and at first their 
seemed to be no particular reason for changing. The pig- 
iron used in the Bessemer process was almost exclusively 
the product of the Cumberland and the Lancashire mines, 
and hence not far from the center of the steel industry. No 
euch revolution in the cost of steel rails had been made, and 
it was supposed that remelting the pig-iron for converters 
was necessary. Soon the demand for steel rails led to still 
further economy of force, and it was discovered that the 
iron could be run direct from the blast furnaces into the 
converters. The new steel works had to be built where the 
pig-iron was made, and rail-mills were established in mining 
districts near the coast. This gave the first impetus to such 
towns as Barrow and Middlesboro. 

These two districts produced last year about 706,000 tons 
of Bessemer steel ingots, against 206,000 tons for the Shef- 
field district. In steel rails they produced 431,000 tons, 
against 46,326 for Sheffield. The production of steel rails in 
England in 1884, diminished by 312,206 tons, Sheffield suf- 
fering more than any other district, the production sud- 
denly falling from 310,000 in 1882, to 46,326 in 1884. Of the 
twenty- eight converters in this district, twelve are reported 
as out of work, whereas, in the other three districts (I in- 
clude South Wales) out of sixty -two converters only four- 



THE IRON AND STEEL TRADE OF ENGLAND, 169 

teen are out of work. Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire 
in Wales, were the chief seats of the iron-rail trade. The 
cheapness of the labor, excellence of the coal, and conven- 
ience of the three ports — Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea — 
for importing and exporting the finished product enabled 
the manufacturers there to produce rails probably more 
economically than was done in any other district in the 
world, although two-thirds of the pig-iron used was made 
from imported ore. When the change came from iron to 
steel some of the South Wales establishments sacrificed 
capital and plants. 

But most of the Welsh iron masters, rather than make an 
entire sacrifice of their capital, changed from iron to steel, 
and the rapid development of the Bilbao mines has afforded 
most valuable aid. To-day, more steel rails are produced in 
South Wales than in any other district, the product in 1883, 
reaching 411,000 tons. Indeed, out of the 1,300,000 (in round 
figures) tons of Bessemer steel ingots produced in England 
in 1884, 1,000,000 were the product of these sea-coast dis- 
tricts— Middlesboro, Barrow, and South Wales. 

As we have seen in the opening of this letter two branches 
only of the iron and steel industries of Great Britain in- 
creased in 1884, and all the others decreased. The produc- 
tion of open-hearth steel ingots has steadily increased since 
1879, when the production aggregated 175,000 tons, against 
455,000 tons in 1884. The open-hearth process between 1876 
and 1882, made greater progress in England than the Besse- 
mer, the production of the former increasing 240 per cent, 
and the latter 209 per cent. Mr. I. Lowthian Bell is of the 
opinion that 7s. 6d. ($1.80) per ton will cover in Great Britain, 
the expense of the additional labor, and fuel in the open- 
hearth process as compared with the Bessemer, as both are 
carried on at the present moment. In speaking of this Mr. 
Bell further said: 

* * In cases where the steel has to be exposed to great strain, 
either in preparing it for its future apphcation, or when so 
applied—engineers not infrequently stipulate for open-hearth 



170 BBJEAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

steel being employed. At the same time I have personally 
met innumerable instances in which Bessemer steel, in both 
the respects referred to, left nothing to be desired." 

Open-hearth steel is now produced in twelve different 
counties. The principal seat of the trade is, however, the 
County of Lanark, where in the immediate neighborhood of 
Glasgow, there are now seven worlds in operation. Scot- 
land and South Wales produce over 255,000 tons of open- 
hearth steel, which is more than half the entire product of 
the kingdom. The steel is mainly worked up into steel- 
plates and angles, and finished steel of all kinds. Between 
1880 and 1884 inclusive, there has been an increase of twenty- 
two firms, fifty-three furnaces, and 211,000 tons of ingots. 

The increase in the tin-plate industry of England at a time 
when the iron and steel industry— with the single exception 
of the open-hearth steel branch— is tending downward, is 
largely due to the folly of the United States in not putting 
a sufficient duty on tin-plate. Glamorganshire and Carmar- 
thenshire, in Wales, are the chief centers of the trade. Out- 
side of this district there ,are but sixteen works— four in 
Gloucestershire, seven in Staffordshire, three in Worcester- 
shire, and two in Scotland. Between 1876 and 1883, the 
production of tin-plate has increased from 2,815,000 to 
6,115,000 boxes, or nearly 120 per cent. More than half this 
entire product is annually sent to the United States. The 
average value of this tin-plate in England, is about $5 per 
box, and as 3,755,707 boxes were imported in 1883, we paid 
England $18,778,535 for what we ought to have made at 
home. How much longer is a mistaken policy, nay, worse, 
a mistaken decision of the Treasury Department to thus en- 
rich South Wales at the expense of the workmen of the 
United States, who stand ready to furnish our home market 
with this useful article at a cost that in a few years after the 
industry is firmly established will not exceed that now paid 
for the imported article? 

We have seen from these facts something of the tendency 
as well as of the extent of the British iron and steel indus- 



THE IRON AND STEEL TRADE OF ENGLAND. 171 

tries. New inventions, new processes, and new freaks of 
trade have left some districts to solitude and decay, and in a 
year of great depression continued to develop others. As 
the inventions of Watts, Hargreaves, and Arkwright took 
the textile industries from the southwestern counties and 
the eastern counties to the coal fields of the north, so have 
the inventions of Bessemer, Seaman, Gilchrist, and others 
drifted the iron and steel industry from the districts around 
Birmingham and SheflSeld, and other inland points to the 
towns on the northeastern and northwestern coast of Eng- 
land and southern coast of Wales. In this way do industries 
shift to those spots where they are pursued under conditions 
representing the greatest returns for the least expenditure 
of labor. 

But will the iron and steel industry remain in these sea- 
coast towns ? Already an element is entering iron manufac- 
ture which may revivify the old inland districts, and which 
makes it possible for places hke Western Germany, West- 
phaha, and Belgium to compete with these English coast 
districts in the manufacture of steel. I refer of course to the 
adoption of the basic process, in which we start with a 
quality of iron not much if any dearer than forge iron. If 
this basic process, which is just now attracting considerable 
attention in the United States and here, is all that is claimed 
for it, districts without any ores suitable for the acid process 
and so far distant from a seaport that the carriage of the 
ore from the ship would forbid its use, will be greatly bene- 
fited. Indeed, Mr. BeU himself says on this subject: 

'* Great Britain, while still possessing some advantages 
over European nations in this new process in relation to its 
export trade, has had this advantage materially lessened by 
the introduction of the basic process. So much so indeed, 
that it is in some instances questionable whether the cheaper 
labor in the steel processes themselves may not place the 
two in a position of equality when they meet each other in 
neutral markets. Such certainly appears to have been the 
ease, even when the higher price of the pig-iron required in 



172 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

the acid process was included, for certain it is that as regards 
the dearer kinds of steel, Belgium and Westphalia have 
been sending considerable quantities for the use of English 
railways." 



XLVII.* 
Lye Waste— a Desolate Region. 

The most startling account of the degradation of a branch 
of English labor comes from the Black country, a region 
which I shall not reach for three or four weeks. The facts, 
however, which I shall present in advance of going there are 
from the most trustworthy source and were actually wit- 
nessed a few days ago. It takes one back to the days before 
Parliamentary interference compelled the white slave-drivers 
of the manufacturing districts of England to stop using 
women as beasts of burden in the coal-pits of this same 
region. I had expected to find poverty and distress and 
squalid misery in these great centers of industry, for we 
have that at home in a land where the laborer is not obhged 
to work for 10 or 12 shillings a week. I did not expect to 
read such a recital of man's greed as one that has just been 
made public as ^' a simple narrative of truth" from the Black 
Country. 

It appears that to-day, in spite of *^ Factory Act" and 
^* School Board," thousands of females, old and young, 
mothers and daughters, with their httle children by their 
sides, toil by day and by night, in a locality about seven 
miles from the great Free Trade city of Birmingham — the 
home of Bright and Chamberlain. In this gloomy district 
about 24,000 people are engaged in making nails and rivets. 
If they were men and boys the lowness of the wages would 

* This letter was written from Edinburgh before I visited the Black 
Country. 



LTE WASTE— A DESOLATE BEGION. 173 

not seem so bad. But this account brings out the fact that 
sixteen thousand females are engaged day after day in the 
occupation. They are not all mature women; daughters 
work by the side of mothers — daughters who, in their tender 
years, ought to be at home, if they have any home, or in 
bed, instead of working their weary arms in shaping, in the 
still small hours of the morning, molten iron into the form 
of nails. Here is the picture drawn by a writer in the Lon- 
don Standard who actually witnessed it two or three nights 
ago: 

In the middle of a shed which adjoins a squalid-looking 
house there is a whole family at work in the production of 
these nails ; father, mother sons and daughters— daughters, 
too, very young in years, but with that sad look of prema- 
ture age which is always to be noticed in the faces of cMld- 
workers. The gayety of youth, its freshness and its gentle- 
ness, seem to be crushed out of them. In the center of the 
shed, with its raftered ceiling — a bleak and wretched build- 
ing through the walls of which the wind readily finds its 
way — there is a ^* hearth," fed by ^^gledes" or breezes. 
Probably there is a girl or woman blowing at the bellows, 
while the strips of iron from which the nails are made 
become molten. 
To make this stiU more forcible, here is an actual case : 
In one of these forges was a mother and several children. 
The mother was a woman probably forty years of age ; her 
youngest daughter— a flaxen-haired girl with a sweet and 
winsome face — was certainly not more than twelve years of 
age. By the side of the hearth there was what is technically 
called the *' Oliver" — a barrel-like construction on the top of 
which is fixed the stamp of the particular pattern and size 
of the nail required to be made. The workmen and work- 
women, by means of a wooden treadle— an industrial tread- 
mill it ought more strictly to be called — shoot out the nails 
from the slot in which they are fixed. They have previously 
hammered the top of the incandescent metal with mascuKne 
firmness, so as to form the head of the nail. 



174 BBEAD-WmNEBS ABROAD. 

So inured do these poor women and girls become to this 
work that it is said they seem to work with more vigor than 
the men — very often indeed, they support their husbands 
and their fathers, who may have fallen into drunken habits. 
But the first question that will naturally be asked, by those 
who demand cheap goods even at this fearful degradation of 
woman, is. How much can they earn ? Again I quote from 
the man who witnessed the spectacle : 

The remuneration they receive is incredibly small. It is 
no unusual thing— on the contrary, it is rather the usual 
custom — for a family of three or four persons, after working 
something like fourteen hours a day, to earn £1 ($5) in a 
week. But out of this money there has to be deducted Is. 
3d. for carriage to convey the nails to the ^' gaffers," as they 
are termed in the district ; then there is allowance to be made 
for fuel and the repairing of the machinery, which reduces 
the £1 to about 16s. 9d. ($4 18) for three people— for three 
people who have commenced to work every morning at half- 
past 7 or 8, and who have worked on through all the weary 
day, with no substantial food, until late at night. 

These poor laborers rarely or ever taste meat from one 
week's end to the other. In the expressive but simple lan- 
guage of one workwoman, this is how they fare: ^^When 
the bread comes hot from the bake-house oven on Saturday 
we eat it like ravenous wolves." The scenes of misery — 
misery so deep and dreadful that the most graphic pen can 
only faintly convey its depth of sorrow — that are witnessed 
in this region, would hardly be believed in the United States, 
and were I not quoting from English authority, of the high- 
est character I should be fearful of laying myself open to the 
charge of prejudice, so frequently made against those who 
would rather elevate than degrade labor, and who do not 
want cheapness at such a fearful cost. Women, it is said 
(and in a few weeks I shall go through this entire region and 
verify the words of my informants) within a few days of 
their confinement have been known to work in the agony 
of exhaustion, in order to earn a few pence, at the ^* hearth" 



LYE WASIE-^A DESOLATE REGION'. ]75 

—not the *^ hearth" of home, which England especially at 
this season of the year so fondly boasts of, but the *^ hearth" 
of the forge. They have been known to return to work in 
a day or two after childbirth, '^emaciated in constitution, 
weak and weary for the want of simple nourishment." 
Their children, ragged and ill-fed, have had to lead misera- 
ble and wretched hves, with no hope before them but a Kfe 
of wickedness and vice. What more dismal picture can be 
drawn than the following description of the cheerless homes 
of these poor creatures? 

The houses, if they deserve to be dignified with the word, 
are wretched in construction ; in many instances they are 
more like hovels than human dwelling-places ; they seem to 
be devoid of all those ordinary conveniences which are to be 
seen in houses occupied by a better class of work-people ; 
they certainly shelter, and that is all, the toilers who for a 
few short hours rest within their ricketty walls. That 
many of these residences accommodate the families who 
have to live in them is only stating the simple truth. In 
nine cases out of ten there is only one room below and two 
above ; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they are 
inhabited by large families. How they manage to exist at 
all in some of these houses is a problem which may well 
exercise the ingenuity of some social philosophers to solve. 
This is a gloomy picture by day, but it is far worse by night. 
Nearly the whole district is literally, as well as socially, in 
the dark. Occasionally lurid bands of light tinge the distant 
horizon with a purple glow (they come in fitful fiashes from 
some distant iron works), but there is no other mode of 
lighting, except, perhaps, in the liquor vaults and in the 
shops in the few leading thoroughfares, where the competi- 
tive exigencies of business demand the luxury of gas. In all 
other parts of the district, the Old World system of tallow 
candle and oil lamp artificial light has not been superseded. 

It is important that those who may soon be called upon to 
legislate in our own country should understand what com- 
peting with a nation that thus permits woman to slave 



176 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 



means. Can the parallel of this be found in the United 
States? With such a black and yet such a truthful picture 
of to-day in the Black Country can America afford to take 
a leap in the dark? 



XLVIII. 
Among the Nail-Makers. 

It has been truly said that of all places in which the 
hand-made nail trade is carried on this Lye Waste is one of 
the most quaintly typical. Some of the hovels which, as 
one of the local bards sings, the Lye Wasters used to ** build 
like the martins with dirt" still stand, but most of the nail- 
ers' tenements are now loosely constructed one story brick 
structures. The late Eichard Eowe once said they were 
dropped down here, there, and everywhere, as if they had 
tumbled from the skies. Indeed a stranger loses himself in 
the narrow, miry thoroughfares that wind or zigzag be- 
tween the houses, as he might lose himself in a nest of 
London courts. Waste Bank, Careless Green, Dark Lane, 
the Dock, are a few specimens of the local nomenclature. 
It is said that the last bull ever baited in England was 
baited on Lye Waste. *^ Girls used to work in its nail- 
shops half naked," says Mr. Eowe, ^^and most Lye Wasters 
went bare-legged and bare-footed." They never dreamt of 
getting married, and *^ whenever they prayed, 'twas for ale 
or strong beer." Things are not quite so bad as this at Lye 
now, but in a three days' walk through this country, dur- 
ing which trip I have visited Netherton, Bromsgrove, Gor- 
nal, Cradley, Blackheath, Old Swinfield, Old HiU, Eowley, 
Eegis and Halesowen, I found that society is pretty gene- 
rally *' regulated" by *^fourpenny" (the favorite ale of the 
vicinity), and I have seen sights that have made me seri- 
ously doubt if I was in a Christian land. 

This region of country is located part in the County of 



AMONG THE NAIL-MAKER8. I77 

Stafford and part in that of Worcester. The population of 
Dudley is about 47,000. The other places are not dignified 
into ipunicipalities, but straggle along aiid are included in 
what are called the in-ban sanitary districts of West Brom- 
wich, 57,000 inhabitants; Brierly Hill, 12,000; Bromsgrove, 
8,000; Stourbridge, 10,000. There is no public spirit, no 
municipal pride. The district is badly drained ; not lighted 
except by the flames of the furnaces and forges. 

It is said that about 24,000 persons are engaged in this 
dismal district making nails and rivets. Though within 
seven miles of the great and prosperous city of Birming- 
ham, no one seems to know or care about this army of men, 
women, young girls and children condemned to a life of 
wretched slavery. The district itself has aptly been de- 
scribed as a grimy chaos. Huge mounds of black and 
dirty- white rubbish, melancholy asses cropping the sparse, 
shrivelled herbage on the banks of worked outpits; stag- 
nant pools, spreading like dead seas between the jumbled, 
natural and artificial hills ; cinder-strewn meadows threaded 
by filthy footpaths ending at smutty stiles; high roads 
fringed with a dreary continuity of dingy red brick houses 
in the midst of which a yellow-washed house looks almost 
as pure as a lily ; small boys clustered on the roads, kick- 
ing and punching and bespattering their smaller feminine 
acquaintances ; bigger ones loafing around the little dingy 
public houses; narrow ragged-hedged lanes, leading no- 
whither in particular, pitfalled with inky puddles through 
which unwashed, unshaven, heavy -booted men flounder 
and splash, with their hands in their coat-pockets, and vic- 
ious looking dogs cowering at their heels ; jaundiced canals 
crowded with lanky black barges; sloping tramways, al- 
most obliterated by gritty, viscous black mud ; crossing and 
converging railways with roadside stations that look like 
recently emptied soot-ware-houses ; gibbeted black coUiery 
wheels ; dilapidated engine houses and cottages sinking, on 
one side, into the undermined earth; dingy red and clay- 
colored cones and domes; iron-works' furnaces, chimneys 



178 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

of all kinds^ sending up smoke and flame. This is no exag- 
gerated picture of what I saw in my walk, which began at 
Dudley and thence, via Netherton, Eowley, Cradley, Regis, 
Stourbridge, through this dismal place and back to Hales- 
owen. 

The inhabitants of this desolate district are among the 
most industrious, and yet the most wretched, in England. 
They are engaged in making all kinds of nails, rivets and 
chains. The work is done inUttle ** smithy s" attached to 
the hovels in which the workers reside, and for which the 
usual rent seems to be about 2s. 4d. to 2s. 6d. a week, a 
trifle over fifty cents. These houses, as a rule, contain lit- 
tle or no furniture. They are filthy and wretched beyond 
description. What spare time the unhappy nailer's wife 
gets from nursing the baby and preparing the meagre 
meals, is spent at the smithy fire pounding away at the an- 
vil until late at night. But the extra work that the woman 
does, combined with that of one child—say a girl of four- 
teen — will barely keep the family from starvation. For ex- 
ample: An expert nailer, working steadily from Monday 
morning to Friday night, can only make two and a half 
bundles of iron rods into nails, for which he gets 6s. 7id. 
per bundle, or for his weeks' work, 16s. 8d., exactly $4. 
Now, his wife, by working every moment of her spare time 
and late into the night— neglecting the wretched little chil- 
dren—can make a bundle of commoner nails, for which she 
is paid 3s. Id., and the little half -starved, stunted girl of 
twelve, with her brown arms and steady, unerring aim, 
will hanuner out half a bundle. Is. 6id. Total earnings of 
an industrious and hard-working family, three at the forge, 
for the entire week: 

English United States 
Money. Money. 

Father 16s. 8d. $4 00 

Mother ,. 3s. Id. 74 

Daughter Is. 7id. 39 

Total gross earnings of the family 
per week 21s. 4id. $5 13 



AMONG THE NAIL^MAKEBS. 179 

But out of this pittance must come 3d. for carriage of 
iron from the *'fogger's" and returning the nails, Is. for 
the smithy fire and 3d. for the wear of tools. Net earning, 
$4 77 per week— the united earnings of three industrious 
sober persons. I stood in the ^^foggers'" shops of these 
nailing districts and saw the pale, emaciated women drag 
their weary Hmbs up the narrow black hills to the *' gaff- 
ers," and eagerly watch the weighing of the heavy sacks of 
nails. The ^^foggers" do not *' claim" that a woman, who 
has no family to attend to, and who goes to the forge every 
morning and works all day as a man, can make more than 
8s. a week—less than two dollars. But the truth is they do 
not make anything like that amount. 

** How many nails have you there," I said to a pale-faced, 
half-starved looking woman, with a fresh-looking lass of 
sixteen at her side. The nails had just been turned into 
the ^^fogger's" scales. 

*^ There should be forty -six pounds back," she replied. 
** They are a small nail and it is a bundle of rods of sixty 
pounds made into nails.^' 

^* How much do you get for them ?" 

** Ten shillings, sir." 

*• How many days' steady work," said I, taking up one of 
the well-shaped hob-nails ? 

*' Six days, late and early, sir." 

** Alone?" 

*^ Oh, no," with a sickly smile, ** the lass here has worked 
steady with me." 

^' How far do you have to bring those nails ?" 

^' About six miles." 

^^Andwalkit?" 

'^Yes." 

*' What does your fire and the carriage and the wear of 
tools cost you a week?" 

*' At least a shilling." 

^' Then you and your daughter, working all day, six days 



180 BREAD WINNERS ABROAD. 

in the week, at the anvil and the * oHver,' make about nine 
shillings?" ($2.16 a week). 

*'That is all we can make, sir." 

*' How do you manage to live?" 

*^ We don't live; we hardly exist. We rarely taste meat. 
I don't know what the poor folks in England are coming to. 
If they as work at other trades be hke us God help them, 
sir, I don't know what will become of us. A many of us 
have to go to the workhouse. So far I have not taken any- 
thing from them, but I may have to do it. Work is very 
slow here sometimes, and it's hard even to get what we do." 

The most cruel part of this business is that young women 
should be allowed to work at what is called the ^' clivers," 
a heavy iron machine worked by means of two wooden 
treadles. At Halesowen I saw numbers of girls making 
large eight-inch bolts on these machines, and indeed they 
seem to work with mascuhne firmness and with far more 
vigor than the men. Mr. Ball, one of the largest nail- 
makers of the district, told me that hundreds of women 
were employed in the little '^smithys" at the back of the 
houses in making these great bolts, and I visited seven or 
eight establishments, that might properly be classed as fac- 
tories, thus employing women. Their earnings do not ex- 
cxceed $1.25 a week. 

In this way mothers, daughters and mere children toil 
and slave on from year to year — indeed one man told me 
nails had been made here for over a century in this way. 
How they exist is a mystery to me. They Hve in hovels, 
they are poorly fed and poorly clad. They marry early, 
and several girls not over seventeen were pointed out to me 
as mothers of children two and three years of age. The 
men have an unmuscular look, most of them are ^^very 
pale and lean and leaden-eyed." The small nailers are 
not protected by the English Factory act, and they work in 
their father's shops sometimes until late at night. The time 
to see the nailers at work is Friday night. The sharp din 
of the hammer on the anvil, and the duU, rapid thud of the 



AMONG THE NAIL-MAKERS. 181 

^* Oliver," as it flattened the heads of the nails and spikes, 
still rings in my ear from last night. I can see the bright 
sparks from the forge, the red-hot nails clattering down to 
join their cooler brethren, the bending forms of the men, 
the women and the girls, little children creeping into the 
clattering, scintillating nail-shop, for the sake of warmth, 
and every now and then the red flames from the forges 
illuminating the scene and making more distinct the wierd 
forms of these shadowy creatures, doomed to a never-ending 
industrial treadmill. 

In some cases I found mothers, and three, and even four, 
daughters at the forge. In most of such instances the father, 
I was told, spent his time in the public house, and the united 
earnings of the entire family would be less than $5. Many 
of the nailers actually starve, and cases of the deepest sor- 
row are not uncommon. ' ' Misery, " as The London Standard 
correspondent wrote, ^' so deep and dreadful that the most 
graphic pen can but faintly convey its depth of sorrow, are 
witnessed. " Now that I have visited this region and walked 
through it, and conversed with at least a hundred of these 
industrial slaves, I am ready to add my testimony to the 
facts contained in the letter written from Edinburgh. In 
reply to some Democratic members of Congress who have 
proclaimed in the House of Representatives that the Edin- 
burgh letter was *' based on hearsay," I can simply say 
that I have not half told the misery of this district, and of 
a dozen other industrial districts in England, and that if 
any one doubts the facts, I will gladly take them with me 
to any of the places I have visited, and let them see with 
their own eyes. It is all very well to gloss these things 
over and keep them out of the newspapers, as they do in 
England, but the poor in England are day by day and year 
by year getting poorer. Not long ago, a journalist of abil- 
ity undertook to show the desperate condition of the work- 
ing classes here. I do not mean idle, worthless, good-for- 
nothing people, but just such industrious people as those 
described in tl^^is letter. He sent the result of his inquiries 



182 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

to a Liberal journal and the manager refused to publish the 
facts. He wrote : 

'^It is better not to call attention to such matters. It 
could do no good." 

In this way they hope to tempt the United States to throw 
down its protective barriers, and at the awful risk of bring- 
ing our own labor to this condition, give back to England 
the sixty millions of customers she has lost in so many im- 
portant branches of industry. 

It is time the truth about industrial England is told. The 
London Standard has dared to speak out on the condition 
of labor in the Black Country, and when that paper makes 
the following statement I can say that it actually accords 
with some of the horrible facts which have come within my 
observation during my stay in this dismal region. 

** Women within a few days of their confinement have 
boen known to work in the agony of exhaustion, in order to 
earn a few pence at the ' hearth' — not the * hearth' of home, 
but the hearth of the * forge;' they have been known to 
return to work in a day or two after childbirth, emaciated 
in constitution, weak and weary for the want of simple 
nourishment. Their children ragged and ill-fed, have had 
to lead miserable and wretched lives, with no hope before 
them but a life of wickedness and vice." 

Does any one in the United States fully realize how these 
poor creatures can live on the few shillings a week they re- 
ceive? It has been truly said of the nailers that they bear 
privations with pathetic patience. I must say that in my 
walks among these poor men and women I was often struck 
with the truth of the above remark. At Halesowen, where 
I found so many young girls working the *^ Olivers" and 
turning out heavy bolts, many of them were solacing them- 
selves with songs. Some of these ballads, though destitute 
of rhyme, are full of reality. For example the '^Nailer's 
Lamentation" opens with some verses on the meagre pay, 
and then the nailer and his wife sit down *' to help to cut it 
out." He says; 



AMONG THE NAIL-MAKEB8. 

You know there is our coal and gleeds 
For the house and the shop fire; 
Likewise the mending of the tool 
And charging of the iron. 

My hammer and my steady, too, 
Must be pared, if not steeled, 
My bore and hardy must be done, 
Or I cannot make good nails. 

Alluding to household wants, he complains that: 

The shoemaker, he must be paid, 
Or shoes we shall have none. 



183 



And again: 

Our clothing has got very brae. 

Over and underneath; 
Our children want some things to wear. 

They must not catch their death. 

There's also butter and sugar too. 

Tea, candles, soap and flour. 
And there's no meat nor garden stuff 

In such a house as our. 

In conclusion the poor fellow says: 

Now what's twelve shillings to cut up 

To pay so many things? 
It would make a lawyer's head turn gray 

To try to meet such ends. 

It matters Kttle to these poor fellows what the cost of 
clothing is, for they cannot get it. Taking the net earnings 
of the man, his wife, and his Httle daughter, which I have 
shown in the above tables was less than 19s., and here is 
what he can buy for it. The man and, his wife sat down 
with me and gave me the facts with great detail and care 
to '^ get it exactly right." 



184 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



s. d 

Rent 2 4 

Coal 2 

Bread 4 

Bacon 3 

Cheese 1 6 

Butter 1 

Potatoes 6 

Tea 1 6 

Sup:ar 7 



s.d. 

Candles 3 

Flour 6 

Tobacco 6 

Club 4 

Clothing and boots and 
shoes, etc 1 

Total 19s. 



And the above is fair wages, not only for the nailer, but 
for the laboring man in every section of England, without 
one exception — less than $5 a week. A necessary house- 
keeping utensil, a pair of boots or a garment, as both the 
man and his wife assured me, meant total abstinence from 
meat for the week, while a doctor for a dying baby or sick 
wife is nothing short of a domestic calamity. 

I visited the brick yards of this tract of Staffordshire and 
found women there doing the work of men. Look at the 
difference in the rates of wages: 

BRICK. 



United States 
Weekly wages. 

Burners, men $27 14 

Carriers, m 6 52 

Engineers, m 15 11 

Helpers, m. 9 52 

Moulders, m. 10 28 

Pitmen, m 6 75 

Pit-tenders, m 9 50 

Setters, m 10 38 

Wlieelers, m 9 25 

Bank-men, m 9 25 

Yard-men, m ,. 7 20 



England 
Weekly wages. 

Brick-burners, men .... $7 30 

Brick makers, m 5 56 

Brick makers, women 2 92 

Brick makers, young people 2 68 

Laborers, m 4 91 

Laborers, w 2 31 

Laborers, young people. ... 2 54 



Women do this work in free-trade England— yes, pale and 
care-worn women. ^^ I get," said one of these women to the 
writer, *'ls. 5d. (34 cents) for making 1,000 bricks; some 
days I can make 1,500 (thus earning 51 cents), but in gen- 
eral I make from 1,000 to 1,200." 



'^A GEY FROM THE BLACK COUNTRY:' 185 

Another said: ** I has to work very hard to earn 5s. ($1.20) 
a week, and as my poor man hasn't been able to do any 
work for six years and more, it's a very 'ard life for us." 



i 



XLIX. 

"A Cry from the Black Country." 

After the pubUcation of the Black Country letters, an 
English writer, George Weatherly, wrote the following 
verses: 

Where the forge-sparks glow and glisten, 

Where the smoke-clouds veil the sky, 
There, if you will only listen, 
You may hear a bitter cry — 
Cry of utter woe and sadness 

Rising up amid the din; 
Cry of thousands in their madness 
Vainly striving bread to win. 

Day and night the fires are burning. 

Day and night the iron glows, 
And the toilers* hearts are yearning 

For a respite for repose ; 
But the flames of fire are leaping. 

And the molten masses run, 
And 'tis vain to think of sleeping. 

Till the tale of work be done. 

And these toilers night and morning — 

Are they strong men in their prime. 
Weary of their work, but scorning 

To be paupers ere their time? 
Nay, but women — wives and mothers. 

Girls who are but children still. 
Slaving on with fathers, brothers, 

Many a hungry mouth to fill. 



186 BREAD ^WINNERS ABROAD. 

Day and night the iron's riven, 

Barest pittance but to gain ; 
Day and night the nails are driven 

Into many a heart and brain. 
Day and night the sparks are flying, 

Searing many a bright young life; 
Day and night all grace is dying, 

Blasted in the bitter strife. 

There, then, where the red fires glisten 

Lurid in the midnight sky, 
Brothers, sisters, if you listen, 

You will hear a bitter cry — 
Cry of utter woe and sadness 

Rising up amid the din ; 
Cry of thousands in their madness 

Vainly striving bread to win. 



Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton. 

The amount of interest that has of late years been 
awakened in industrial topics is astounding. On the boat 
coming orer I met that well-known and graceful writer, 
Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton. She was struck with the 
accounts I gave her of the condition ^o which British labor 
had been reduced in the scramble after cheapness. Mrs. 
Moulton was somewhat imbued with the doctrine of free 
trade as taught by the college professors of New England, 
but she had never fully realized that free trade means 
cheapness — that cheapness means the degradation of human 
labor in America. The day after the conversation I met 
Mrs. Moulton on deck, when she handed me the following: 



MBS. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTOK 187 



IN THE BLACK COUNTRY. 

[Note. — The inhabitants of this desolate district are among the 
most industrions and yet the most wretched in England. Their 
children, ragged and ill-fed, lead miserable lives, with no hope be- 
fore them but a life of wretchedness and penury. — R. P. P.] 

In that Black Country which the sun disowns, 
Where smoke obscures the sky and chokes the breath, 
And pallid life walks hand in hand with death, 

And men as wan as ghosts, with hearts like stones, 

And lips too weary even to utter moans, 
Toil day by day for pittance of coarse bread, 
And see gaunt famine still beside them tread, 

While weaker women mingle toil with groans, 
What earthly light shall dawn? There is no rest: 

No hope of brighter days beguiles — no dream 
Of better fortune cheats the anxious breast; 

Through the black darkness shines no friendly beam: 
And yet unheeding suns arise and set. 
And joy is in the world. Does God forget? 

Louise Chandler Moulton. 

On the Servia, Feb. 19, 1885. 

** After our conversation yesterday," she remarked, **I 
have thought a great deal about the poor creatures con- 
demned to such a Hfe of misery and toil, and wondered if 
God had forgotten those who thus wearily labor that others 
may grow rich and live in luxury." 

One may well stand appalled before the labor problem as 
we find it in Europe. Levi, Giffen, and others estimate 
that the average annual earnings of the industrial classes in 
England is about $200. I often doubt if it reaches this 
amount when I see the poverty in which they live in the 
large cities. When one sees the squalor of such cities as 
Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow, and some parts of 
Birmingham, to say nothing of London, the crowded 
houses, the cellars, reeking in filth ; yet we are told by one 
of England's greatest statesman that this was the result of 



188 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

England's prosperity, the increase in the value of land. 
Thousands of families have only a single room to dwell in, 
where they sleep, eat, multiply and die. For this miserable 
lodging they pay a price ranging from 50 cents to $1.25 per 
week, one quarter and sometimes pne third of their earn- 
ings. A tale told the other day by the chairman of the 
London School Board illustrates the terrible character of 
this struggle for house room. Three schools were taken, 
and the condition of the children ; was ascertained. They 
came from 1129 families. Of these, 871 families had only 
one room to live in. In the majority of these cases the 
families living in one room contained five or more persons, 
in some as many as nine. 



LI. 

The Degradation of Woman. 

These descriptions of the degradation of woman at the 
forge, and the brick-yards of *^Merrie England," will no 
doubt thrill with joy the hearts of free traders. But bad as 
it is, I think to complete the ecstasy of those who believe in 
the degradation of human labor I would suggest to them 
that at Stockholm the debasement of woman is perhaps 
more thorough and complete than in any city of Northern 
Europe. In that picturesque town on the seven islands she 
practically supplants the beast of burden. And I am not 
altogether unfamiliar with woman's work in Europe. I 
have seen her around the pit mouth, at the forge and bare- 
footed in the brickyards of '^Merrie England," filling blast 
furnaces and tending coke ovens in ''Sunny France." I 
have sadly watched her bearing the heat and burden of the 
day in the fields of the ''Fatherland," and in Austria-Hun- 
gary doing the work of man and beast on the farm and in 
the mine. I have seen women emerge from the coal pits of 
** busy Belgium," where httle girls and young women grad- 



THE DEGRADATION OF WOMAN, 189 

uate underground as hewers of coal and drawers of carts, 
for it is no uncommon thing in Europe to hitch women and 
dogs together that manufacturing may be done cheaply. 
Aged, bent and sunburned, I have seen woman, with rope 
over shoulder, toiling on the banks of canals and dykes in 
picturesque Holland. Having witnessed all this I was yet 
surprised to find in a city so beautiful and seemingly so 
rich and prosperous as Stockholm, women still more de- 
based. In Stockholm she is almost exclusively employed 
as hodcarrier and bricklayer's assistant. She carries bricks, 
mixes mortar, and in short, does all the heavy work about 
the building. At the dinner hour you see groups of women 
sitting on the piles of wood and stone eating their frugal 
repast. They wear a short gown, coming a trifle below the 
knees, their home-knitted woolen stockings and wooden 
shoes. Over their heads a kerchief is tightly tied. Those 
engaged mixing mortar and tending plasterers wear aprons. 
They are paid for a day of hard work of this toil, lasting 
twelve hours, the munificent sum of one kroner (equivalent 
to 26.8 cents). Women sweep the streets, haul the rubbish, 
drag hand-carts up the hills and over the cobble stones, un- 
load bricks at the quays, attend to the parks, do the garden- 
ing and row the numerous ferries which abound at Stock- 
holm. The entire dairy business of the city is in their 
hands, and here they take the place of horses and dogs, 
carrying on their shoulders the heavy cans of milk from 
door to door. 

When American women are thus abased, and not until 
then, shall we be able to build and to manufacture as 
cheaply as Europe, and by Europe I make no distinction 
between Protective Sweden and Free-Trade England. It is 
the labor of Europe, with European environments, that the 
United States cannot admit into the country without in- 
dustrial ruin, not the labor of any one European country, 
nor of Europeans who come to our shores with the honest 
intention of becoming part of our body politic and of sus- 
taining American institutions. 



190 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

LII. 

The English Census. 

In spite of the wonderful progress that England has made 
during the life of the present generation, her people are to- 
day as bitterly opposed to innovations as they were in the 
days of the uncouth Sibthorp, when it was said that the con- 
course of foreigners to the Hyde Park Exposition would 
commence a revolution here, murder^Queen Victoria, and, 
after dishonoring the women of England, proclaim a red 
repubhc in the kingdom. The project was attacked furiously 
by the Times, and even one member of Parliament in a 
speech prayed for some tremendous hailstorm or lightning 
to be sent from heaven expressly for the purpose of destroy- 
ing in advance the building destined for the exhibition, and 
to mark the downfall of England. Even within my own 
recollection, when Mr. Gladstone proposed in one of his 
budgets to reduce the duty on claret, and to encourage the 
use of light wine, it was frantically opposed in Parliament 
as a foreign innovation, and some of the speakers declared 
that ^^the virtue of Englishwomen would never be able to 
stand this new and terrible mechanism of destruction. She 
who was far above the temptation of the public house would 
be drawn easily into the more genteel allurements of the 
wine-selling confectioner's shop." And in every such shop 
would be the depraved, conventional foreigner, the wretch 
with a mustache and without morals, lying in wait to ac- 
complish at last his long-boasted conquest of the blonde 
misses of England. Indeed, one member, a little more 
fanatical than his colleagues, went so far as to picture the 
unhappy British father in search of a female member of his 
family finding his wife in one of those confectioner's shops 
lying drunk in one room, and his daughter disgraced in 
another. 

Almost every innovation introduced into England has 



THE ENGLISH CENSUS. 191 

been opposed in this way. Even the census, which I propose 
to make the chief topic of this letter, was bitterly opposed 
when a wickedly radical government proposed to take an 
inventory, as it were, of the Uttle island. The alarm with 
which the proposal was received, and the virulence of 
language with which it was combatted, cannot but excite 
our surprise at this day. '' I did not believe," said the chief 
opponent in the Commons, ^' that there was any set of men, 
or indeed any individuaal of the human species, so presump- 
tuous and so abandoned as to make the proposal we have 
just heard. I hold this project to be totally subversive 
of the last remains of Enghsh Uberty. The addition of a 
few words would make it the most effectual engine of rapa- 
city and oppression that was ever used against an injured 
people. Moreover, an annual register of our people will 
acquaint our enemies abroad with our weakness." 

Another honorable member said : ^^ The people looked on 
the proposal as ominous, and feared lest some public mis- 
fortune or an epidemical distemper should follow the num- 
bering." The bill, after much debate, finally passed the 
Commons, but was far too great an innovation for the House 
of Lords, and was thrown out on the second reading. Hardly 
half a century passed away before the proposal was renewed 
and the bill passed. On the 10th of March, 1801, the first 
enumeration was made and has been repeated ever since, 
without omission, in the first year of each successive decen- 
nium. The first census ever taken in the United States was 
in 1790, hence the census just completed is the tenth census 
of the United States, and that of England the ninth enumer- 
ation of its inhabitants. As'the chief in charge of one of 
the most important divisions of our own census, it is not 
surprising that one of the first places I visited on my arrival 
in this city was Somerset House. I found that the officers 
of the General Registry office had been organized into an 
impromptu census office, and for this purpose about 100 
men were employed in Craig's Court, an office rented for 
this special pm^ose. Sir Brydges Powell Henniker, Bt., 



192 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

Eegistrar General, assumes the responsibility of superin- 
tendent, an(J W. Clode, Esq., and Dr. W. Ogle that of his 
first assistants. Dr. Ogle, who is Superintendent of Statis- 
tics in the General Register Office, very kindly initiated me 
into the mysteries of the British census office. The EngUsh 
census is all taken in one night. 

Dr. Ogle told me that the difficulty of taking an account 
of the population within the Umits of a single day, becomes 
greater and greater at each recurring decennial period, ow- 
ing to the rapid growth of the people, and the increasing 
complexity of their local sub-division. But in spite of this 
the ninth census of England, like the tenth census of the 
United States, was carried out with complete success, and 
without more than the usual amount of friction, and the 
figures are probably more accurate than those obtained in 
former years. 

The British census deals with nothing but the population 
and the number of inhabited houses. It will cost probably 
$1,000,000 for the whole kingdom, but cannot in any way be 
compared in scope to that of the United States. It has 
nothing to do with agricultural returns, with manufacturing 
statistics, with the depending, delinquent, and defective 
classes, with education, with railroads, with wealth, debt, 
and taxation, with the social condition of cities, with min- 
ing and stone quarrying, and with a score of other interest- 
ing inquiries that make our census a grand inventory of the 
progress of the Nation during each decennial period. For 
the purpose of enumeration the kingdom was divided in 630 
districts and 2,175 sub-districts, and a sufficient corps of 
enumerators were employed to visit every house and obtain 
the schedule, which in most cases the occupier himself made 
out. The total number of persons returned as Uving in 
England and Wales, at midnight on April 4, 1881, was 
25,968,286. This was an increase of 3,256,020, or of 14.34 per 
cent upon the numbers living at the previous census of 
April 3, 1871, and was almost exactly equivalent to the addi- 
tion of another London with all its inhabitants to the popu- 



THE ENGLISH CENSUS. I93 

lation. The increase was higher than in any decennimn 
since 1831-41, when it was 14.52. In the two succeeding de- 
cades (1841-51 and 1851-61) the rate feU, first to 12.65 and 
then to 11.93; but in 1861-71 the rate again rose to 13.19, to 
be, as already noted, still further advanced in the ten years 
just completed. In the United States the increase has been 
more than double that of England and Wales. 

The census of Scotland is taken about the same time by 
the Registrar General of Scotland, and his preHminary 
report, now in my possession, enables me to state that the 
population of Scotland amounted in April, 1881, to 3,734,441, 
a total increase of 374,423 persons in ten years, an increase 
of about 11 per cent, or about one-third of the rate of in- 
crease in the United States. It wiU be observed that the 
population of Scotland does not equal by several hundred 
thousand that of the single State of Pennsylvania. 

The census of Ireland is another separate job, and is super- 
intended by the Registrar General of Ireland, and two 
assistants, who combined call themselves commissioners. 
Among other facts brought out in this census are the reli- 
gious professions in each county and province. Of the total 
population of Ireland (5,159,839), 2,522,804 were returned as 
males, and 2,637,035 as females, thus showing a decrease 
since 1871 of 252,538 persons, or 4.7 per cent. Between 1861- 
71 the decrease amounted to 6.7 per cent. According to the 
summaries furnished by the enumerators 3,951,888 persons 
returned themselves as Roman Catholics; 635,670 as Protes- 
tant Episcopalians; 485,503 as Presbyterians, and 47,669 as 
Methodists. All denominations showing a decrease, except- 
ing the Methodists, which sect has increased nearly 10 per 
cent. This table shows how the population of this unhappy 
country has decreased since 1841: 

Total 
Population. 

1841 8,196,597 

1851 6, 574,278 

1861 5,798,967 

1871 5,412, 377 

1881 5, 159, 839 

13 



194 BEEAD'WINNERS ABROAD. 

A total decrease of 3,036,758 in forty years— thus while Eng- 
land has increased in population during that period 10,000,- 
000, Ireland has decreased over 3,000,000. Surely there is 
something wrong in the government of a land so rapidly 
disintegrating. 

Eeturning again to the progress of population in England 
and Wales, which forms a far more interesting topic for 
consideration, I find that in the course of the last half 
century the population of England and Wales has increased 
86.9 per cent. Supposing a similar rate of increase to be 
maintained, the population just enumerated would be dou- 
bled in the year 1936. Such a proportion is, however, purely 
hypothetical. Had such a rate of increase prevailed in 
former periods, a single pair of persons living in the year 
A. D. 571, would have provided the whole of the present 
population of England and Wales. During the half century 
of this remarkable increase in population a tremendous 
change in the social organization of the countries has taken 
place. A series of what has been aptly termed unequaled 
and bloodless triumphs over physical and moral obstacles 
placed this island at the head of modern industry. The 
labors of such men as Brindley, Arkwright, Crompton, Cart- 
wright, Eoebuck, Wedgwood, and, greatest of all. Watt, 
had increased the resources of that country to such an ex- 
tent that it gave the population, increasing as I have shown 
beyond all previous example, abundant opportunities of 
profitable labor ; and ^^ opened new and unlimited fields of 
production for the multiplication and diffusion of the neces- 
saries of life, and of the comforts and refinements of 
civilization." 

In 1841 the census shows us that nearly 8,000,000 persons 
in England, Wales, and Scotland were practically the sup- 
porters of the entire population. Speaking in round num- 
bers, 3,000,000 were engaged in commerce, trade, and manu- 
factures; 1,500,000 in agriculture; 7,000,000 were laborers, 
not agricultural; 130,000 formed the army at home and 



THE ENGLISH CENSUS. 195 

abroad; 218,000 were employed on the sea and in inland 
navigation; 63,000 were professional men; 140,000 were fol- 
lowing miscellaneous pursuits as educated persons; 17,000 
were in the government civil service; 25,000 were parochial 
and other officers ; 1,100,000 were domestic servants: 500,000 
were persons of independent means; and 200,000 were alms 
people, pensioners, paupers, lunatics, and prisoners. 

The great increase had been in the number engaged in 
manufacture. The large cities had begun to grow. In 1811 
England had only twelve cities and towns with a population 
exceeding 30,000. At the close of the first decade of the la^t 
half century she had thirty-one cities and towns of 30,000 
population and upward. Lancashire, Yorkshire, Stafford- 
shire, and Warwickshire, which with London now form the 
great manufacturing regions of England, and contain in the 
aggregate 11,702,588 of the total population of 24,608,391— or 
nearly 80 per cent. — were then (London excepted) like Her- 
cules in his cradle. Since then villages, each with a few 
hundred souls scattered around its parish, have become 
enormous towns with their thousands of inhabitants, the 
wonderful increase of the population of London has been 
the marvel of the world. Manchester and SaKord, which 
at the beginning of this century, numbered hardly 100,000, 
have increased to nearly 600,000; Bii^mingham from 80,000 
to over 400,000 ; Liverpool from 100,000 to over 550,000 ; Leeds 
from 60,000 to over 300,000. 

Li the table on the following page are the twenty princi- 
pal towns of the kingdom in the order of their rates of in- 
crease in the past decennium. 

The increase of the 19 provincial towns in this list was 
16.5 per cent, during the last decade, while that of Lon- 
don was 17.2 per cent. In the previous decennium (1861-71) 
the respective rates had been 16.1 for London, and 17.2 for 
the provincial towns. Thus London has increased in a 
somewhat higher ratio, and the 19 provincial towns in a 
somewhat lower ratio than was the case in the preceding 



196 



BBE AD ^WINNERS ABROAD, 



Town— 



Salford 

Oldham 

Nottingham 

Leicester 

Hull 

Bradford 

Leeds 

Sheffield 

Sunderland 

London 

Birmingham , 

Brighton 

Bristol 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne 

Portsmouth 

Liverpool 

Wolverhampton 

Norwich 

Plymouth 

Manchester 



Increase per 


Increase per 


Increase per 


cent. 1871-81. 


cent. 1861-71. 


cent. 1861-81. 


41.2 


21.8 


72.0 


34.8 


14.2 


53.9 


34.2 


13.9 


52.9 


28.5 


39.9 


79.8 


26.5 


24.8 


57.9 


24.4 


37 3 


70.8 


19.3 


25.1 


49.2 


18.5 


29.6 


53.6 


18.3 


20.5 


42.6 


17.2 


16.1 


36.0 


16.6 


16.1 


35.4 


16.3 


17.5 


36.6 


13.1 


18.5 


34.0 


13.1 


17.7 


33.1 


12.7 


19.8 


35.0 


12.0 


11.1 


24.4 


10.9 


12.2 


24.4 


9.3 


7.3 


17.3 


9.2 


9.8 


20.0 


-2.8 


-f3.7 


+0.8 



decennium. The population of London exceeds that of the 
aggregate of all the above towns. London, 3,814,571; the 
19 towns above named, 3,764,244. No fewer than 560,311 
persons were added to the inhabitants of the metropolis in 
the last decade— a number exceeding the entire population 
of Chicago in 1880. How long will it be possible for London 
to thus add a Chicago to its population every ten years, is 
not for me to say, and, as I have already shown, equally 
hypothetical are all attempts at forecasting population. And 
it is equally futile to prodict the future of our own cities. 
The following table, in which I have taken the population 
of American cities from the census returns of 1870 and 1880, 
sufficiently illustrates the relative per cent of growth of the 
eight great English cities, and the eight leading American 
cities: 



THE ENGLISH CENSUS. 



197 



City. 



New York. . . 
Philadelphia. 

Chicago 

Boston 

St. Louis*. ... 

Baltimore 

Cincinnati. .. 
New Orleans. 



^58 




28 


16 


25 


19 


64 


180 


44 


41 


13 


91 


24 


25 


14 


35 


13 


12 



City. 



London 

Liverpool . . . 
Birmingham 
Manchesterf 

Leeds 

Sheffield.... 

Bristol 

Bradford . . . 






17 
12 
17 
-2 
19 
18 
13 
24 






16 
11 
16 
4 
25 
30 
19 
37 



The rate of increase during the last twenty years in Chi- 
cago, of course, has been greater than in any other city, but 
aside from that it will be seen that the English cities all hold 
their own with those of the United States. And yet in these 
islands, with this wonderful increase of the city population, 
the extremes of wealth and poverty are found in harsher 
contrast than they have ever been found elsewhere. With 
the increase of the city population, agriculture has retro- 
gressed. The wheat crops are now fifty per cent less than 
they were seven years ago ; the number of sheep have de- 
creased since 1874 about 20 per cent, and a pending struggle 
between the landlord and the tenant seems imminent. And 
yet London bounds onward, adding in population a Chicago 
to its immense growth every ten years, while the provincial 
towns follow close behind. 

Thoughtful men pause and ask if it is real, and the mur- 
muring of mustering hosts can already be heard. Judge 
Cairnes says: *^Can anyone seriously consider this state 
of things, and yet repose in absolute satisfaction and confi- 
dence on the maxim of laissez faireV^ 

The other night I sat in the gallery of the House of Com- 
mons when Mr. Ritchie moved for a select committee to in- 

* The great discrepancy in the increase of St. Louis is due to the 
enumeration frauds of 1879 — the actual increase during last decade 
was greater than would seem. \T)\iq to the formation of Salford. 



198 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

quire into the effect of foreign tariffs on the development of 
British manufactures and industries. He said that the con 
sumption of tea and coffee and spirits were faUing off— all 
indications that the working classes were not earning much 
money. In England itself pauperism had increased. In 
1876 there were 18,000 in-door and 79,000 out-door paupers, 
while in 1880 there were 26,000 in-door and 84,000 out-door. 
In Scotland the figures had remained about stationary, but 
in Ireland, as we might have expected, they had increased 
from 6,000 in-door and 31,000 out-door in 1876 to 8,000 in- 
door and 53,000 out-door in 1881. Emigration during the 
same period had increased, being 109,000 in 1876 and 227,000 
in 1880. Eailroad receipts were falling off, and in every- 
thing that was generally taken as indicating the prosperity 
of the country they had been going back instead of progress- 
ing. Without going into the cause of this and without say- 
ing that it is due to England's commercial pohcy, it will be 
worth the while of every Western man to reflect a little on 
the array of facts I have presented, and which not only 
show the wonderful advance England has made in the past, 
but they also present a picture of the England of to-day, 
and time alone will decide whether she is yet destined for 
greater achievements, or whether, in the words of Bishop 
Berkeley, *' Westward the course of empire takes its way." 



LIII. 

Birmingham— The Merry, Merry Pauper. 

Over one million of the inhabitants of the United King- 
dom are paupers, and in London one in every five of the pop- 
ulation dies a pauper. Pauperism and crime annually cost 
John Bull $82,000,000. The total number of paupers in the 
principal continental countries is 2,351,000, while their 
population is 187,000,000, against 1,017,000 paupers in the 
United Kingdom with a population of 35,000,000. 



BIRMINGHAM—THE MEBBY, MEBBY PAUPEB. 199 

Showing 30.6 paupers to the thousand in free trade Eng- 
land, and only 12.5 paupers to the thousand in protective 
continental countries. 

The cost of pauperism and crime under free trade has 
steadily increased year by year — increased too, more rapidly 
than the population. In 1840 the total cost was $30,500,000 
annually; it has now reached $82,000,000 annually. The 
population in 1841 was 26,000,000; ^^to-dayitis 35,000,000." 
Said Mr. Joseph Chamberlain of Birmingham: ^* Never be- 
fore was the misery of the very poor more intense, or the 
conditions of their daily life more hopeless and more de- 
praved." 

And Mr. Chamberlain uttered God's truth. The man 
who denies this stultifies himself, and deliberately utters 
falsehoods. 

If a resident of lUinois were to ask me to describe pauper- 
ism and poor-relief in England and Wales, its extent and 
cost, I would say to him. Picture to yourself a country in 
area only one million acres larger than your own State, but 
containing a population eight times as large ; this population 
distributed unequally, 15 per cent of it to be found in one 
city, and nearly twelve millions (or half the population of 
England alone) Hving in London and the four great manu- 
facturing coimties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, 
and Warwickshire ; where 212 persons reside in cities and 
towns to every 100 residing in the rural districts, or two to 
one ; where frequently one milHon of the population are put 
down in the Blue Books as paupers. Instead of this terri- 
tory being divided into 102 counties as Illinois is, the 
inquirer must imagine it parceled out into 647 imions, which 
vary in area from 60 to 120 square miles. In each of these 
unions may be found a work-house, varying in its accom- 
modations from St. Pancras, which accommodates nearly 
4,000, and Liverpool 3,500, and Birmingham 2,000, to those 
in such unions as Eothbury and Dulverton, which each 
have a capacity of about fifty pauper-power. It would be 
as difficult to give a correct notion of the style and size of 



200 



BBEAD^WINNEBS ABROAD, 



these buildings as to picture the variegated surface of the 
globe. Some are said to be lofty, some low, but all are 
massive. Some (for instance, the one at Birmingham or 
that at Liverpool) might be called an elegant retreat, while 
others would look beside it like a group of wheelbarrows 
round the Lord Mayor's coach— lost in the splendor of the 
gilded spectacle. To add up the aggregate capacities of 
those work houses makes one believe that they were ex- 
pected to contain half the population of the country. But 
as a matter of fact (the large towns excepted), they do not 
contain in many cases half, in some not a quarter of the in- 
mates for which they were built, so that the waste in keep- 
ing up large, unfilled establishments, each with an expen- 
sive staff of officers, is very great indeed. To complete our 
picture, we must add an army of nearly 7,000 paid officials 
constantly engaged in one branch or another of the poor 
law administration, and whose aggregate salaries and ra- 
tions came last year to over $5,000,000, while the total main- 
tenance of indoor paupers was only about $8,750,000. The 
total annual cost of pauperism and outdoor relief in Great 
Britain and Ireland is in round figures, nearly $50,000,000. 
Below is a table showing the populations of England and 
Wales and the average annual expenditure for paupers for 
the last five decades: 



Year. Population. 

1834 14,372,000 

1841 15,911,757 

1851 17,927,609 

1861 20,066,224 

1871 22.712,266 

1880 25,323,000 







Per head 






popula- 


Expenditure. 




tion. 


£6,317,255 


8s. 


9id. 


4,760,929 


5s. 


Hid. 


4,962,704 


5s. 


6id. 


5,778,943 


53. 


9 d. 


7,886,724 


6s. 


Hid. 


8,015,010 


6s. 


4d. 



The most dangerous form that pauperism in England is 
now taking is the enormous increase in the cost of outdoor 
relief. Through the kindness of the honorable Mayor of 
Birmingham, Mr. Alderman Avery, I was taken to the 
palatial work-house, and shown into the details of its work- 



I 



BIRMINOHAM^THE MEERT, MERRY PAUPER. 201 

ing by the clerk to the guardians, Mr. Walter Bowen. I 
could not help noticing the absence of able-bodied workers, 
which gave a totally different character to the establish- 
ment. I was told that the exceptions to this are not the in- 
dustrious, not even the merely improvident poor, but those 
of downright bad character, whom temporary pressure, per 
haps of disease, has driven within its walls. 

So that a work-house in England does not, as a rule, con- 
tain those that can work. It may be described *' as a work- 
house essence ;" it is rather school, infirmary, penitentiary, 
prison, place of shelter, or place of work, but something 
that comes of all these put together. The able-bodied are 
the recipients of outdoor relief, and this alone, it is said, 
constitutes an annual burden upon real property in the 
kingdom to the extent of between $15, 000, 000 and $20, 000, 000. 
The result of this might be noted to advantage. 

1. It acts as a protective duty in favor of the laborer as 
against the farmer (or landlord), as against the rate-payer. 

2. It inflicts serious injury upon the laboring class by 
keeping them in a state of dependence. 

The melancholy army of *' casuals," as they are called, 
seem to be constantly on the move. The ^* order" for ad- 
mission is available *' for one night only," and does not take 
effect earlier than 6 o'clock in the evening in winter, and 8 
o'clock in summer. The vagrant is searched and bathed, 
his clothes taken from him, and if necessary dried or disin- 
fected. He is not entitled to discharge himself before 11 
A.M. the next day, and then only if he has done the task- 
work—breaking stones, picking oakum, etc., which has 
been assigned to him. He receives eight ounces of bread, 
or six ounces of bread and one pint of gruel, or broth, for 
supper and breakfast. Mr. T. W. Fowle, the rector of 
IsHp, and a careful student of the poor laws administration, 
gives it as his opinion that to the professional vagrant the 
'* casual ward " is simply an arrangement that helps him to 
live the rest of his life as best he pleases. *' He has," says 
that gentleman, '^his pleasures, his liberty, his money, his 



202 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



opportunities of committing crime, and of extracting 
money from the bounty of a misguided public. In short, 
the vagrant is still, as he ever has been, master of the posi- 
tion—the scandal and standing difficulty of poor-law ad- 
ministrations." 

After visiting the work-house proper, I was conducted by 
Mr. Bowen to what is called the Test House. It seems the 
test house is a Birmingham idea, and, from what the mas- 
ter of the work-house and the other officials said, it has 
worked remarkably well. The test house is an inexpensive, 
plain-looking brick building, standing some litte distance 
from the work -house proper. It could accommodate several 
hundred — possibly one thousand — ^but ^^ somehow," said Mr. 
Bowen, **the Wags' don't take to it kindly." The highest 
number it ever sheltered at one time was sixty. The day I 
was there a score of woe-be-gone looking ruffians were 
scattered round the large room on forms gloomily picking 
oakum. Now, any one who has seen this process, and 
seen the oakum weighed out, will appreciate what picking 
four pounds of oakum means. This has to be done every 
day. But this is not all the indignity that a cold-blooded 
local government board has forced upon the Birmingham 
able-bodied pauper. It has prepared for him a weekly table 
d^hdte (shall I caU it ?), and, through the courtesy of the 
work-house authorities, I append it intact. 



Days. 



Sunday 

Monday 

Tuesday... 
Wednesday 
Thursday.. 

Friday 

Saturday... 



Breakfast. 









Dinner. 



6 


m 

2. 
16 




Is 

pq 


i 

Q 




H 


4 

8 
4 


'ii 


6 


'ie 


H 




H 


4 

8 


'ii 






Supper. 



H 



H 



BIBMINGHAM—TEE MERRY, MERRY PAUPER, 203 

But to fully appreciate this sort of living one must know 
the names and quantities of the several ingredients to be 
used in every gallon of the liquid food. Here it is: 

SOUP. 

Quantity to 
a gallon. 
Name and Description of Ingredient. oz. 

Legs and shins of beef 16 

Split peas 8 

Oatmeal c 8 

Carrots 4 

Turnips , 4 

Onions 4 

The meat to remain in the soup. 



BROTH. 

Quantity to 
a gallon. 
Name and Description of Ingredient. oz. pts. 

Liquor from boiled meat 8 

Oatmeal 8 

The liqnor from boiled meat is the liquor in which the meat for din- 
ner has been boiled, 

GRUEL. 

Name and Description of Ingredient. oz. 

Oatmeal 2 

Skim milk 

Water 



Quantity to 
a gallon, 
pts. 

6 
2 



** Shades of departed vagrants defend us," cries the pau- 
per undergoing this test. What would the over-fed paupers 
of the old poor law administration have thought of the shin 
soup, oatmeal broth, and skim-milk gruel of to-day? Before 
me is the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the poor 
law. Some of the testimony seems too ludicrous to be read- 
ily believed by those of the present generation. Yet, a few 
weeks ago, when attending the dinner of the Political Econ- 
omy Club in London, I was introduced to the now venerable 
Mr. Edwin Chadwick, who had the rare good fortune not 
only to take a prominent part in laying bare the existence 
of those abuses, and tracing them to their roots, but also to 



204 BEE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

propound and live to enforce the remedies by which many 
of them have been cured. It was to the same Mr. Chadwick, 
now a white-haired old gentleman of eighty, that one work- 
house master said: ^'We give them all meat four times a 
week. The working men have a bellyful. We never 
weigh anything. Then they have good table beer and good 
ale. You may say that the inmates of my work-house, sir, 
are better off than one-half of the rate-payers out of the 
house." 

In those merry days in England the pauper was the 
favored of God's creatures. Imposture and crime were 
bountifully rewarded, while industry and frugality met 
either with neglect or persecution. The parish functionary, 
like old Mr. Bumble himself, forgot he was merely appointed 
to administer relief to the indigent, but believed that he was 
the great patron of the whole laboring population, who 
could never go along without his aid. Said one witness be- 
fore the commission: **We give 'em as much victuals as 
ever they can eat." The following advertisement for the 
contract for providing work-house fare has been aptly 
termed one of the most "• astonishing documents in the pig- 
sty history of England's poor laws:" 

The contractor mcwt furuish good, wholesome, sweet, clean, com- 
fortable beds; servants to cook and serve the victuals, and attend on 
the poor; good, sweet, wholesome, fat meat; good, sound, small 
beer, best flour, good Gloucester cheese, and good clean butter. The 
fires must be good, and kept up in certain roooms at all hours, so 
that paupers might boil their tea-kettles. The contractors must pro- 
vide wigs for such paupers as may wear them or may require them. 

With such inducements as the above advertisement is it 
surprising that the annual poor rate of the land, which at 
the close of the American war in 1783 was £2,132,487, had 
increased in 1833 to over £8,600,000? The poor rate had in- 
creased 300 per cent, and the population about 75 per cent. 
The whole rental of the country was being rapidly swal- 
lowed up, not by poverty, but by pauperism. But the 
cancer of pauperism had eaten into the very heart of the 



BIRMINGHAM— THE MERRY, MERRY PAUPER, 205 

largest portion of the community, and the evil effects of 
this shocking system of poor law administration, in my 
belief, is one of the causes of so much pauperism to-day. 
A certain class of the people absolutely look forward to 
the poor-house as their final home, and fight just the same 
as at the other end of the social scale the sons and daugh- 
ters of the Queen look forward to Parliament granting 
their annuity of $125,000 a year on the celebration of their 
marriage. It is one of the "blessed institutions" of the 
country. 

The fare for the regular indoor inmates of an Enghsh 
workshop is better than the test house fare, which I have 
already given. Here it is : 





Break- 








fast. 


Dinner. 


Supper. 




(D 




N 


be 






T^ 




-c 






Days. 


be 

1 




O 

B 


73 W2 




s' 




i 


$3 . 


a* 
6 


'd. 

J4 






S 


1 


^1 


2 


1 




p; 

o 


^1 


bX) 

1 






<j 


'A 


4 


1^> 


w 


m 


02 


m 


02 


^ 


t5 


Sunday 




i 
i 
i 

i 


i 
i 
i 


Monday 








n 


7 










Tuesday 










14 


1 






Wednesday 










6 






. 


Thursday. 




4 


^9^ 














Friday 








i 




14 








Saturday 














2 



















The above is what every Englishman is entitled to, and 
so particular is the law, and so ingeniously cold-blooded is 
the equity that presides over work-house management, that 
'* an inmate can call upon the master to weigh the food pro- 
vided for him in his own presence and in that of witnesses." 
He can also appeal to the guardian if his food is not satis- 
factory, and be certain of being heard. The pauper of 
England is also a privileged character, inasmuch as the 
law affords him efficient help in compelling the obedience 



206 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

of his wife, for, should a pauper forbid his wife to leave the 
work-house, the guardians are obliged to retain her until 
such time as her pauper lord may relax his marital author- 
ity. There was a time when the laws relating to what the 
work-house officials in England usually call ' ^ hilly jitti- 
mites," made profligacy a lucrative occupation, inasmuch as 
what the mother of two or three illegitimate children re- 
ceived from the parish enabled her to live more comfortably 
than some more decent families, and she was even consid- 
ered a good object of marriage, on account of these weekly 
payments," the proceeds of the sale of virtue becoming in 
this way a marriage portion. 

The English work-house of to-day differs widely from that 
of forty years ago. The following description is taken from 
the Quarterly Review of several years ago. It is worth re- 
producing: *'In one large room are found sitting in silence 
a group of motionless, worn-out men, with age grown 
double, with nothing to do, with nothing to cheer them, 
with nothing in this world to hope for, gnarled into all sorts 
of attitudes, so that they look more like pieces of ship tim- 
ber than men. In another room are seen, huddled together, 
a number of old, exhausted women, clean, tidy, but speech- 
less and deserted. 

** The next scene was a room full of sturdy laborers out of 
work. These were generally sitting round a stove, with 
their faces scorched and half -roasted. As we passed them 
they never rose from their seats, and had generally an over- 
fed, a mutinous, and an insubordinate appearance. A room 
full of girls of from 5 to 16, and another of boys of the same 
ages, completed the arrangements." 

Of the smaller house of those times the writer says: 
*^ Classification has been found impossible. All that is ef- 
fected is to put the males of all ages into one room, and all 
the females into another. In these cases the old are teased 
by the children, who are growled at when they talk and 
scolded when they play, until they become cowed into 
silence. The able-bodied men are the noisy orators of the 



I 



BIBMINGHAM—THE MEEBY, MEBBT PAUPEB. 207 

room. The children hsten to their oaths, and, what is much 
worse, to the substance of their conversation ; while a poor 
idiot or two, hideously twisted, stands grinning at the 
scene, or, in spite of remonstrances, incessantly chattering 
to himself. In the woman's hall, which is generally sep- 
arated only by a passage from the men's, females of all 
characters and of all shapes live with infants, children, and 
young girls of all ages." 

The palatial English work house of the present day, like 
the one in this city, or like the model work house at Bow, 
which I beheve belongs to the White Chapel Union, are con- 
structed on sound principles. As the sick and invalid are 
kept in the old work house, a mile away, there are none but 
healthy people in the new work house at Bow. Every one 
is kept busily at work. There are carpenter shops, a smith 's 
shed with forge, work-rooms for tailors and shoemakers ; nor 
are the smaller trades overlooked. For these who have 
never learned a trade there is wood-chopping, coffee-grind- 
ing on a large scale, a httle stone-breaking, cleaning and 
sweeping, attending to the pigs and the garden, and other 
small work. How much better is this than to keep even the 
old man in idleness while the weary hours pass. On the 
woman's side aU the washing is done, and besides the ^ ^ house" 
washing the washing for the large district schools. Few if 
any tradesmen are employed to do work here for the three 
or four hundred people, and there is considerable sale of the 
results of their work. Other Unions in England are moving 
in this direction, which corresponds more to the American 
prison system than to our method of deahng with the poor. 

Turning from the pauper to the criminal, I find that Eng- 
land and Wales alone have a pohce force of 30,047 men, or 
about one policeman to say every 812 of the population. 
The cost of the force for 1879 was $15,290,000. The total 
annual cost per man was £98 10s. 4d., or $492.50. Of this 
amount $28.50 was for clothing and accoutrements. There 
are in the several cities and towns of England 41,048 known 
criminals, 4,269 houses of bad character, and 52,443 crimes 



208 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

annually committed. In 1879-80, 16,388 persons were com- 
mitted for trial, and of these 3,835 were acquitted and 1,502 
sentenced to penal servitude. There were 34 murders in 
England that year, Lancashire, the ** banner" county for 
murders, heading the gloomy list with 6, Middlesex follow- 
ing with 5, and Lincoln, Derby, Essex, Gloucester, and York 
each with 2. Of the 34 only 16 were executed, the sentences 
of the remainder being commuted to penal servitude for life. 
The total daily average of convict prisoners was 10,299, 1,154 
being females. The total annual cost of the twelve convict 
prisons was: 

Cost of staff £177,877 

Maintenance of convicts 153,215 

Incidentals 26, 034 

Total £357,126 

or an average gross annual cost for each convict of $166. 
The highest average cost is that of the Brixton Prison, $241, 
and the lowest that of Pentonville, $143. 50 per head. By the 
prison act of 1877, all prisons are now vested in the Secretary 
of State for the Home Department ; and at the date of its 
commencement there were in existence 113 local prisons. 
During 1879 there were 45 abolished. The total commit- 
ments for the year were 192,235, of whom 49, 554 were females. 
The total annual cost of local prisons was £430,985, the daily 
average of prisoners being 19,835, at an annual cost per head 
of about $110. Besides all this there are 6,284 boys and girls 
in the reformatory schools, and 12,422, of whom 2,054 were 
girls, under detention during 1879 in industrial schools. The 
cost of the police establishment in Ireland was no less than 
$6,087,430, and yet the population of the island is only 
5,159,839. 

In spite of this enormous outlay in Great Britain and Ire- 
land for police, there has been lately, especially in London, 
a dangerous epidemic of ruffianism. A few nights ago I 
walked from the door of Comb Hotel to the Marble Arch 



BIBMINGHAM—THE MERRY, MERRY PAUPER. 209 

with Mr. Frederic Harrison, and when I left him near his 
home he especially cautioned me to take a cab to my hotel, 
and added that he considered it unsafe for anyone to walk 
the streets of London late at night alone. He said that the 
present condition of affairs is the result of the example of 
unpunished lawlessness and an insufficient pohce force in 
the city. Not long ago outrageous assaults and murders, or, 
to say the least of it, suspicious deaths, became so frequent 
in a particular part of the Thames embankment that a 
question was asked on the subject in the House of Commons. 
To look over the police news you would think the laws were 
framed on purpose to encourage brutal personal assaults, 
especially the assaults of men on their wives. 

In the same paper I read the other day of one man getting 
a year for steahng a pocketbook with three pence ; a servant 
girl was sent for five years for pilfering some trifling article, 
and a man was given a month for stealing ^*a bottle of 
colored water, value of two pence." In the same column a 
man ^' with a violent temper," for striking and then shoot- 
ing twice at his wife was discharged, while a second man 
was simply bound over to keep the peace in his own recogni- 
zance for three months for brutally beating his wife and 
afterward throwing her downstairs and throwing kerosene 
over her. Brutahty, when it can be practiced with long 
odds in favor of impunity, seems to be the ideal pastime of 
the low EngUshman. This is the style : 

In the sunshine I'd be basking, 

All that week gone drunk to bed ; 
An this night her came a asking 

Where she'd get her children bread. 
Well, of course, for this I licked her, 

And, as I was heavy shod, 
I next knocked her down and kicked her, 

And for this I went to quod. 

And I have no doubt those brutes lament over the light 
sentences which they can ^*do on their 'eads" and the 
14 



210 BREAD - WINNEB8 ABROAD. 

occasional interference with their ideal pastime in this 
frame : 

\ It's a namby age we live in, 

With our joys they interferes; 
Homely sports we have to give in, 
Or we in the dock appears. 

Some of the leading journals have already commented 
sharply on these light sentences. ' ' It is, " said one the other 
day, ^^the outbreak of a spirit of sheer ruffianism, which 
has taught itself to believe that it has but little to dread in 
the way of penalty, since there is always a chance of getting 
off altogether, and always something like a certainty of get 
ting light enough punishment if absolute escape is impos- 
sible." These are some of the facts about English pauper- 
ism and crime. Such facts are not often published in the 
newspapers here, and the difficulty in obtaining Parlia- 
mentary documents, from which nearly all the figures I have 
presented were taken, is much greater here than at home. 
They are not distributed free, but the British Government 
charges a good round price for them. While the alarming 
number of paupers are not decreasing and some classes of 
crimes are increasing, it is gratifying to know, from Mr. 
Gladstone's budget, that the drink traffic is decreasing. May 
the effect of those who are laboring against intemperance 
bear a still greater harvest during the next decade. They 
have already reduced the revenue from drink. Let us hope 
evidence of the good work will next be seen in the decrease 
of pauperism and crime. May God speed it. 



LIV. 

The Terrors of the Coal-mines. 

It has been said that coal is the mainspring of modern 
material civilization. Indeed, Professor Jevons has even 



THE TERRORS OF THE COAL-MINES. 211 

denied our favorite boast that this is the age of iron, declar- 
ing that coal commands this age — the age of coal. In Eng- 
land coal, in truth, stands not beside, but entirely above all 
other commodities. It is the material energy of the country. 
England has grown rich and numerous upon this source of 
wealth. Over 500,000 of its inhabitants are at the present 
moment employed under what is called the coal-mines regu- 
lation act. During my stay in England this time I have 
visited the principal cities of the five great coal regions of 
England and Wales, and if one may judge from some of 
these great centres of wealth and wretchedness, the melan- 
choly fact once claimed by an eminent EngHsh writer, that 
the whole structure of England's rich and refined civiliza- 
tion is built upon a basis of ignorance, pauperism, and vice, 
is indeed too true. 

As late as fifteen years ago a scientist wrote : ^ ' At present 
it may almost be said to be profitable to breed little slaves." 
It will probably surprise many persons on the other side of 
the Atlantic that in Scotland coal-miners were held in a state 
of actual and legal slavery down to the year 1799— only 
eighty-three years ago— when the act of George III., chap. 
56, was passed, by which the colliers in Scotland were de- 
clared free from servitude. Within the memory of the 
people in the towns I have visited, and the coal districts I 
have passed through, women were literally employed as 
beasts of burden. One of England's most recent historians 
tells us that where the seam of coal was too narrow to 
allow women to stand upright, they had to crawl back and 
forward on aU fours for fourteen or sixteen hours a day, 
dragging the trucks laden with coals. The trucks were gen- 
erally fastened to a chain which passed between the legs of 
the unfortunate women, and was then connected with a belt, 
which was strapped round their naked waists. Their only 
clothing often consisted of an old pair of trousers made of 
sacking, and they were uncovered from the waist up. Un- 
sexed almost Hterally some of them became, for their chests 
were often hard and flat as those of men. Though women 



212 BBEAB-WINNERS ABROAD, 

are not allowed in the mines now, the descendants of these 
hardened creatures still work around and about them, and I 
observed them especially in Wales and in the Black country, 
stolid, animal faces, with shoeless feet and uncovered legs 
and arms, begrimed with clotted filth. Indeed, savage- 
featured, reckless, dirty men and women, whose main en- 
joyment seems fighting and carousing, form the chief at- 
traction of the richest coal-mining localities. 

It is not, however, to this phase of the subject that I wish 
to call attention, but to invite the reader to accompany me 
in a bird's-eye view of the coal regions of England and 
Wales. In subsequent letters I hope to take up, according 
to their importance, the other great industries on which 
England's industrial and commercial greatness is founded. 

In 1259 Henry III. granted a charter to the freemen of 
Newcastle-on-Tyne for *^ liberty to dig coal," and yet at the 
commencement of this century the quantity of coal annually 
raised in Great Britain did not exceed 10,000,000 of tons. 
The five principal coal fields of England and Wales are those 
of South Wales (which runs into Monmouthshire), North 
and South Staffordshire, South Lancashire, the Notts, Derby- 
sliire, and Yorkshire coal field, and the great Northern field 
of Durham and Northumberland. The coal field of South 
Wales is, with the exception of that of the Clyde Basin, the 
largest in Britain, Its general form is that of an oval basin 
or trough, lying nearly east and west. The Bay of Swansea 
and Cardiff (the latter city a creation of the rich Bute family) 
form the principal outlets for this coal. Among the barren 
hills of the Taff in the northeast corner of Glamorganshire, 
stands the city of Merthyr-Tydvil, with a population of 91,000. 
The population has decreased in the last decade. Over a 
century ago the first iron-works was started here. It should 
be seen by the glare of the furnaces by night. It is dirty, 
irregularly built, badly managed ; no roads, no footpaths, 
no supply of water. The quantity of coal annually raised in 
this coal-basin is about 17,000,000 tons. At the rate of pro- 
duction the supply is sufficient to last about 1,800 years. 



THE TEBB0R8 OF THE COAL-MINES, 213 

The South Staffordshire coal field extends from Clent Hills 
on the south to Brereton, near Rugeley, on the north, a 
distance of twenty-one miles, and is of average breadth of 
seven miles. The North Staffordshire coal field, though of 
smaller area, has vastly greater resources. These latter 
fields extend through what is called the Black Country— a 
district covering about thirty miles of barren soil, beneath 
which are rich crops of coal, iron and stone. The important 
towns of this region are Dudley, with 87,407 population, 
raised into importance by iron and coal works ; Wednesbury, 
with 124,438 population, almost wholly engaged in the iron 
trade ; Wolverhampton, an ancient town founded by King 
Egbert's sister, now the capital of the ''iron trade" and of 
the ''Black Country" and contaiaing 164,303 inhabitants, 
and at the extreme southern ends of Birmingham and 
Coventry. 

The principal cities in the South Staffordshire coal districts 
are Stoke, the busy capital of the Staffordshire potteries, 
with a population of 152,457; Hanley, also in the pottery 
district, in which the iron trade is becoming an important 
feature; and Stafford, a straggling town with curiously 
named streets and famous for boots and shoes. These two 
great coal-fields produce annually over 14,000,000 tons of 
coal. 

The third great coal-bearing tract is that of North Lanca- 
shire (including East Cheshire). It is very irregular in out- 
line, and consequently difficult to describe. It may, how- 
ever, be said to occupy a band of country lying east and 
west, sending offshoots at intervals into the Trias and Per- 
mian formations on the south and into the lower carboni- 
ferous strata which forms its mountainous limits on the 
north. The extreme length from Bickerstaffe to Staley- 
bridge is thirty-two miles, and the average breadth six miles. 
The principal cities in this region are Manchester and Sal- 
ford, forming one great town, the metropolis of the cotton 
trade; 'Blackburn, as early as the seventeenth century, 
celebrated for its " checks " and unbleached "grays;" Bum- 



214 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

ley, a thriving modern town on an old Eoman station ; 
Wigan, famous for cannel coal, tall chimneys, and a church 
built in Edward III.'s reign; Bolton, a city in which as 
early as 1760 cotton velvets and muslins were first manu- 
factured on a large scale by Arkwright's machinery ; it was 
here, too, that Lord Derby was beheaded in 1651 ; Oldham, 
a noted manufacturing town, whose inhabitants seemed 
rough, hearty, and industrious, and Rochdale, the principal 
centre of the flannel trade. About 18,000,000 tons of coal 
are raised in Lancashire; an increase of nearly 5,000,000 
tons on ten years ago. Lancashire contains the deepest 
coal-mines in the British Isles— that of Rose Bridge, near 
Wigan, 806 yards in depth, and that of Dukinfleld in 
Cheshire, on the confines of Lancashire, 717 yards ; while 
there are several shafts varying from 400 to 600 yards in 
depth in the western part of the coal-field. Several large 
firms also raise from their own pits nearly one million of 
tons of coal yearly. In this district mining operations are 
conducted on a large scale, and with the most perfect 
mechanical appHances. 

The fourth great coal-field is that of Notts, Derbyshire, 
and Yorkshire, and though forming parts of these shires, is 
physically one. It is the largest coal-field in England, and 
about 150 square miles smaller in area than that of South 
Wales. The produce of this field has bounded forward dur- 
ing the last twenty years, having increased from about 
12,500,000 tons in 1860, to nearly 26,000,000 in 1880. The 
available supply in this field, I was told, would exceed 27,- 
000,000,000 tons. 

The great northern coal-field of Durham and Northum- 
berland extends from Staindrop, near the north bank of the 
Tees, on the south, to the mouth of the Coquet, where it 
enters Alumouth Bay, on the north, the distance being 
nearly fifty miles. Notwithstanding that the great northern 
coal-field has been drawn upon more heavily than any other 
of the British coal-fields, and for a longer period, the pro- 
duce has rapidly increased during the last quarter of a 



TEE TEBROBS OF THE GOAL-MINES. 215 

century. This is partly due to the creation, and prodigious 
expansion of iron manufacture along the estuary of the 
Tees, which has its center at Middlesborough, and partly to 
the enormous demands from London. In 1859 the produce 
from this field was about 16,000,000 tons, to-day it is double 
that, or 32,000,000 tons. A glance at the following table, 
which I have prepared from the latest official statistics, will 
show the ground already covered : 

THE PRODUCTS OF THE MINES. 

Annual Product. 

First Coal District— South Wales 17,000.000 

Second Coal District— North and South Stafford 14,200,000 

Third Coal District— Lancasliire 18,000,000 

Fourth Coal District— Notts, Derby, and Yorkshire 26,000,000 

Fifth Coal District— Great Northern 82,000,000 

107,200,000 
Annual product of Scotland and Ireland, say 20,000,000 

127,200,000 

Leaving only about 8,000,000 tons, if we take Mulhall's 
annual estimate of 135,000,000 tons, for the mines located in 
the counties of Westmoreland, Cumberland, Leicester, 
Shropshire, Gloucester, Somerset, and in North Wales, I 
have included the product of Warwick, in Staffordshire, 
that of Cheshire, in Lancashire, and that of Monmouth, 
about 5, 000, 000 tons, in South Wales. Of the 20, 000, 000 tons 
for Scotland and Ireland, over 19,000,000 must be put down 
to Scotland, and it is estimated there remains in these coal 
basins for future use about 9,643,000,000 tons. Below is a 
table showing the amount of coal in tons, to the depth of 
4,000 feet, remaining in the several coal mines of England 
at the close of 1880: 

Name of Coal-field. Millions of Tons. 

South Wales 32,166 

Forest of Dean 360 



216 



BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 



Bristol and Somerset 4,210 

Warwickshire 445 

South Staffordshire 922 

Leicestershire 826 

Notth Wales 1,985 

Anglesea 5 

North Staffordshire 3,680 

Lancashire and Cheshire 5,165 

Midland 12, 000 

Great Northern 7,152 

Cumberland 400 

Scotland 9, 643 

Ireland 150 

Total amount remaining in visible coal-fields in Great Britain . . 79,009 



In addition to the above there is supposed to be 56,000,- 
000,000 tons in concealed coal-fields at depths of less than 
4,000 feet, making a total of about 135,000,000,000, the pre- 
sumable quantity of coal in reserve in the year 1880 at 
depths not exceeding 4,000 feet. If drawn upon at the 
present annual rate it will last about 1,000 years. Professor 
Pumpelly has shown us that in the United States the con- 
sumption of anthracite is about 30,000,000, and of bituminous 
about 40,000,000, making a total of 70,000,000 tons. This, if 
added to the output of Great Britain and the rest of the 
globe, makes the total annual coal product of the world 
about 300,000,000 tons, of which over two-thirds represents 
the product of Great Britain and the United States. *^ Thus 
mankind," says an eminent scientist, '^ by his progress in 
the arts, is gradually restoring to the atmosphere the car- 
bonic acid which was extracted there from during the carbon- 
iferous period. Much of this is taken up and utilized by 
vegetation; but as it is probable that the consumption of 
vegetable matter is at least equal to the growth, there is a 
tendency toward deoxidation." 

The coal and iron region of Staffordshire, including Bir- 



THE TERRORS OF THE C0AL-MINE8. 



217 



mingham, Wednesbury and Wolverhampton are celebrated 
throughout the world. Of late years the city of Birmingham 
has greatly improved, yet the working population in and 
around this town are in a very sad condition. According to 
Mr. Hawkes, a Birmingham Justice of the Peace, the condi- 
tion of the artisan population, and of the multitudes of 
famihes and young persons of that city is almost as deplor- 
able in the vast majority of instances as the condition and 
circumstances of the poor nailers in Worcestershire. There 
were more than 100,000 of the 400,000 population of Birming- 
ham living in back courts, and the condition of the houses, 
if they might be called houses, in those courts was simply 
shocking, so deplorable, in fact, that the brother of the Right 
Hon. Joseph Chamberlain has instituted an inquiry into the 
condition of these houses and the pHght in which their in- 
habitants live. The rates of wages in some of the industries 
in Birmingham and in the United States may be seen from 
the following summary: 

MACHINES AND MACHINERY. * 



United States. Weekly Wages. 

Blacksmiths $15 50 

helpers 10 50 

y. p 3 00 

Boiler makers 13 75 

Core makers 14 00 

Engineers 13 75 

Finishers.. 11 00 

Firemen 9 00 

Furnace men , 12 60 

Helpers. 9 00 

Holders-on 10 25 

Laborers 9 30 

Machinists, men 13 00 

" app. m 8 50 

*' app. y. p 6 00 

** helpers 9 00 

Moulders 15 50 

Pattern makers 14 60 

Riveters 15 75 



England. Weekly Wages. 

Blacksmiths $8 25 

helpers 3 60 

y. p 2 20 

Boiler makers 7 75 

Core makers. . , 7 75 

Engineers 7 75 

Finishers 8 75 

Firemen 4 50 

Furnace men 6 75 

Helpers 5 50 

Holders-on 5 00 

Laborers 5 00 

Machinists, men 8 00 

** app. m 3 25 

** app. y. p 1 75 

helpers 5 30 

Moulders 8 75 

Pattern makers 8 40 

Riveters 7 50 



218 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



METALS AND METALLIC GOODS. 



United States. Weekly Wages. 

Burnishers, men $15 00 

Core makers, m 14 00 

Engineers 12 75 

Finishers 14 50 

Fitters 15 00 

Forgers 12 75 

Furnace men 11 50 

Grinders 12 00 

Hafters 12 00 

" y.p 3 75 

Hammermen 24 00 

helpers 11 00 

Lacquerers, w 4 50 

Moulders, m 15 60 

Moulders, y. p 10 30 

Pattern makers 17 00 

Smiths 17 25 



England. Weekly Wages. 

Burnishers, men $7 25 

Core makers, m 7 50 

Engineers 8 50 

Finishers 7 00 

Fitters 9 00 

Forgers 9 50 

Furnace men 6 75 

Grinders 7 75 

Hafters 6 00 

'' y. p 2 50 

Hammermen 5 75 

'' helpers 6 75 

Lacquerers, w 2 35 

Moulders, m 9 50 

Moulders, y. p 3 20 

Patternmakers 9 00 

Smiths 625 



LV. 

Sheffield— A Gloomy Erebus. 

It was a bright, sunny day when I entered the old town 
of SheflSeld, and from Perristone to the great manufacturing 
district itself, the surrounding landscape presents all the 
softer graces in a district uneven but not mountainous. 
Close and well-wooded valleys with streams ghttering 
through them; hills appearing from behind other hills of 
nearly equal altitude, some bearing masses of wood and 
others studded with cheerful villas and views of wonderful 
extent and beauty on all sides. Suddenly the blue sky and 
sunshine disappear and in the hazy distance the tall chim- 
neys and the church spires of the centre of the steel trade 
loom up as it were in an amphitheatre of hills. In spite of 
the smoke and the mist of the dingy workshops and of the 
sooty, broken-down dwelling places, and in spite of the 
coarse-featured, shabbily -dressed men and women who 



SHEFFIELD— A GLOOMY EREBUS. 2\d 

throng the narrow streets, all of which mar the natural 
beauty of the surroundings, the most casual observer can 
see the remains of a state of natural beauty which once 
made this district the favorite seat of nobihty, and at one 
time so intimately connected it with the general history of 
the kingdom. Indeed all this neighborhood is associated 
with events of historical importance. But why waste space 
in depicting the beauties and the blemishes of this famous 
old town when it has been done with all the grace and class- 
ical knowledge of one of England's poets? 

And Sheffield, smoke-involved ; dim where she stands 

Circled by lofty mountains, which condense 

Her dark and spiral wreaths to drizzling rains 

Frequent and sullied ; as the neighboring hills 

Ope their deep veins, and feed their caverned flames. 

No aerial forms on Sheffield's arid moor 

E'er wove the floral crowns, or smiling stretch'd 

The shelly sceptre; — there no poet roved 

To catch bright inspiration. Blush, ah, blush, 

Thou venal genius of these outraged groves ; 

And thy apostate dead with thy soil'd wings 

Veil : who has thus thy beauteous charge, resign'd 

To habitants ill suited; hast allow'd 

Their rattling forges, and their hammers' din, 

And hoarse, rude throats, to fight the gentle train, 

Dryads and fair-haired Naiades ; the song 

Once loud as sweet of the wild woodland choir 

To silence; — disenchant the Poet's spell, 

And to a gloomy Erebus transform 

The destined rival of Tempean vales. 

The father of English poetry sang of the Sheffield knife, or 
*Hhwytel," in the fourteenth century; and since that time 
every historian, including Leland and Camden, and every 
guide book from Defoe's manual to the last half-crown iUus-. 
trated guide to Sheffield, have spoken of Chaucer's Miller 
and the *^ Sheffield thwytel" which he bare in his hose. 
The antiquity of Sheffield's great industry has therefore been 



220 BBEAD-WINNER8 ABROAD. 

satisfactorily settled. But for all that Sheffield did not 
strike the old chroniclers as very much of a place, and as 
late as the eighteenth century the neighboring town of 
Rotherham, now with only 35,000 inhabitants, was ahead 
in the race, and in those days '' Sheffield near Rotherham " 
was not an unheard-of address. Leland, after quoting the 
Chaucer lines, says of Sheffield: ^^It is a large, circular, 
closely built, smoky market town at the foot of high hills.' 
Camden in the seventeenth century devotes about fifteen 
lines to Sheffield and Rotherham. The former he said was 
*^a town famous for iron- works and defended with an an- 
cient and strong castle," while the latter was only noted for 
being the birth-place of Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of 
York. Another old writer says: '^In Rotherham be very 
good smithes for all cutting tooles." Defoe in the eighteenth 
century devotes two pages in his manual to Sheffield and 
describes it as '^ a very populous and large town with nar- 
row streets, houses built of stone looking black by the con- 
tinual smoke of the forges which are always at work.'' Of 
its trade, he adds: ^'Sheffield is reputed to excel Birming- 
ham in cuttery-ware and files ; Birmingham is allowed to 
out-do Sheffield in locks, hinges, nails and polished steel." 
Defoe also gives us the first statistics, that ''no less than 
40,000 hands were employed in the iron trade in Sheffield 
and the adjacent tract of land called Hallamshire." 

Leaving the station you cross a viaduct something like 
that of Holborn, London. On the left are a lot of little 
wooden shanties used as offices, and on the right a sort of 
wholesale vegetable market, about as untidy as that on Ran- 
dolph street, Chicago. Here old women may be seen buy- 
ing potatoes, carrots and cabbages and tying them up in 
large spotted cotton handkerchiefs. As you enter the cen- 
tre of the city one of the first things that strike a stranger is 
the "cook-shops" on the London plan. The smoking-hot 
meat and the steamed pudding are placed in the window 
and carved in the sight of the hungry street arabs, who con- 
gregate to buy pennyworths of pudding, which is served to 



SHEFFIELD— A GLOOMY EEEBUS, 221 

them steaming hot on a piece of paper, and which they 
eagerly devour on the streets. The time to see the working 
classes of Sheffield is Saturday afternoon, when the narrow 
streets with their precipitous hills, are crowded. Sixty 
years ago it is said ail the spring-knife cutters were knock- 
kneed from being underfed, and had long arms from the 
peculiar manner in which they worked. It can hardly be 
said they are underfed now, though a good many of them 
waste the money that should go for wholesome food and 
comfortable houses in beer and spirits. The workman on 
the streets, when ^'cleaned up," is dressed with a blue pilot 
jacket of a peculiar British workman cut, a billy-cock hat, 
a white or spotted handkerchief tied round his neck, and 
thick, hob nailed boots. There is no mistaking him. 

The dweUing-houses in the city of Sheffield itself are the 
most squalid I ever saw, not excepting Dundee. Some of 
them are mere dens built of stone, but since plastered over 
with gray plaster, now moss-grown with age, and roofed 
with layers of split sand-stone. They are irregularly built, 
the floors of some being on a level with the streets, while to 
enter the next house you must ascend one and two and even 
three steps to reach the ^' general room." The windows are 
as irregular, both in size and location as the doors. In some 
the narrow, old fashioned diamond pane exists; in others 
glass of a larger size is used. 

Go to the top of Snow Hill, near St. John's Church, and 
another such view there is not, perhaps, in the world; old 
gable roofs, covered with moss and black with age ; chim- 
neys crumbling down with pots at every conceivable angle, 
some of them wretched places with every window-pane 
broken, with the roofs actually faUing through, with the 
very walls crumbling down from age. There are wretched 
old lodging-houses in this city occupied by laboring men, 
which were built in 1710. The census returns of 1881 show 
that one-tenth of the houses of Sheffield are not inhabited, 
and in some quarters of the city the well-being of the peo- 
ple would be better served if one-half of them were vacant. 



222 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

It is hardly possible that there is another town, even in 
England, with such a multitudinous array of courts and 
alleys. They exist literally on all hands, and one hesitates 
to explore them, lest, lurking in those dreary slums where 
the sun never shines, where ventilation is unknown and 
fresh air rarely penetrates, are all sorts of contagious dis- 
ease. On the doorsteps of most of the houses in these 
courts and alleys and side streets, in strange contrast to the 
sooty exterior and the dark green or dark maroon shutters, 
are dabs of whiting. Within, the houses of course differ. 
Some I found to be wretched, filthy places, with the usual 
slovenly women and ragged, dirty children. Others pre- 
sented a fair amount of comfort, but it is evident that these 
habitations have had a depressing effect upon the workman 
of Sheffield. 

Said Dr. Webster, who has been United States Consul at 
Sheffield for twelve years : 

*' People earning their pounds a week are actually con- 
tented to Hve year after year, perhaps without a bedstead, 
and in just such houses as you have described." 

** How do you account for this? " I inquired. 

*'The workmen here," he replied, ^^do not have the same 
ambition that our artisans at home have. They have no de- 
sire to rise. If they can earn enough to keep them in bacon, 
bread and beer, they are content. They indulge in betting 
and drinking. For instance, the grinders are a well-paid 
class of men, and just now the hollow-grinding branch of 
that business is having a ^boom.' They could easily earn 
£3 a week. But they won't work. Saint Monday must be 
kept, and Saturday very little work is done, and the result 
is, as a large manufacturer told me the other day, that the 
employers are obliged to send thousands of dozens of razors 
to Germany in blank to be ground, while Sheffield men are 
drinking, dog-fighting and betting. They seem to have lit- 
tle care for the future. Many of them contribute to a * Burial 
Society ' and a ' Sick Fund, ' and they know if the worst comes 
to the worst the workhouse stands ready to receive them." 



SHEFFIELD— A GLOOMY EREBUS. 223 

** Why not bring Germans here ?" 

'' They would kill them." 

I afterward put this question to Chief Constable Jackson, 
who is the officer that broke up the secret assassination society 
of Sheffield in 1867. 

^^ Would they murder foreign workmen?" said I. The 
Chief Constable replied with a significant nod: **That is 
rather a broad question, but they would probably crack 
their heads." 

It is hardly probable that the spirit of fifteen years ago 
has wholly died out in Sheffield. Then, if a workman has 
made himself obnoxious to the leaders of the local trades- 
union, it occasionally happened that some sudden and sig- 
nal misfortune befell him. Perhaps his house was set on 
fire ; perhaps a canister of gunpowder was exploded under 
his windows, or some rudely constructed infernal machine 
was flung into his bedroom at midnight. Men and women 
were actually murdered and the *' organization of labor" 
was simply a vast conspiracy not unlike that recently dis- 
covered in Ireland. Sheffield was the town for the carry- 
ing on of this fearful work — the dark, narrow streets and 
courts, the low, wretched houses, the extreme difficulty of 
policing and Hghting the city and of keeping the peace, all 
added to the difficulty of unearthing this plot. Indeed, 
some parts of Sheffield to-day have not greatly changed 
since the beginning of the century, when the gutters of the 
houses with protuding spouts discharged what they received 
on the heads of the passers-by ; when the distant lamps dis- 
pensed but a feeble light. In those days Sheffield was ' ' a 
poor, little, dirty, mean-built town ; the streets were badly 
pitched, the sewers running down the centre, and but few 
causeways were flagged." The old quarters of the city have 
not changed much since then. Most of these miserable 
slums belong to the Duke of Norfolk, whose total annual 
rental from Sheffield aggregates over one quarter of the true 
ratable value of all the property in the township of Sheffield. 
In this calculation I have added twenty-five per cent on the 



224 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



ratable value of the property as returned for taxation in 
the report of the Local Government Board. The total an- 
nual rental of this Duke is nearly $1,400,000. Instead of 
building comfortable homes for the thousands of working- 
men, who are his tenants, he lets them live in the rookeries 
described. In fact, all enterprising men avoid the Duke's 
land, and the city is extending in other directions, among 
the beautiful hiUs, while the thrifty mechanics have op- 
portunities of finding better homes away from the old part 
of the town which is deservedly falling into decay. 

Of course the description I have given only applies to old 
Sheffield. Besides the new part of the town there are many 
beautiful suburbs, which make excellent homes for those 
who can afford to live outside of the town. It cannot be 
said that Sheffield has any handsome public buildings. Un- 
like its sister cities, Leeds and Bradford, it does not run 
much to town halls and high spires but contentedly jogs 
along with an inferior, gloomy-looking town haU, which 
has been added to from time to time as the growth of the 
town required. The Duke of Norfolk has erected an enor- 
mous building, used as a public hall and as offices for ^* the 
Norfolk Estate," and which stands out in bold relief in the 
midst of the broken-down one-and-two-story black-stone- 
and-mottled plaster buildings of his tenants. Ever mind- 
ful of the needs of the toilers who live in ill- ventilated and 
unrepaired houses, he has provided, in one corner of his 
great public building, a gorgeous gin-palace, the stained 
glass gilding, brightly painted barrels, polished brass and 
pewter, and glaring streams of light from which tempt his 
tenants from the shadows of their dismal homes and cheer 
them with beguiling gin and beer. 



LABOR AND WAGES. 



225 



LVI. 

Labor and Wages. 

It is a very difficult task to say exactly what a Sheffield 
man will earn. I have already shown that what he can earn 
is one thing and what he does earn is another— that the diff- 
erence is generally about 33 1-3 per cent. That is to say, a 
grinder who can earn 60s. a week, or $15, earns about $10— 
perhaps, taking the year round, less than that. The lab- 
orer in Sheffield earns from 16s. to 20s. aweek, or from $4 to 
$5. The figures which I shall present in the following tables 
are based upon statements originally obtained from the 
counting-house of the manufactories by Dr. Webster, the 
United States Consul. They have never been printed before, 
and the Consul kindly permitted me to copy them from of- 
fice records. By inquiries of manufacturers and by verifi- 
cation in my conversation with the workmen, and a 
comparison with some recent returns made by the Board of 
Trade, I have revised them and I think the following may 
be said to be the average present weekly earnings of the 
thrifty workman of the Sheffield district who works full 
time : 

rRON-FOUNDING. 



Puddlers* $7 50 

" Underhand 5 50 

Shinglers or hanimermen*.,.12 00 

Assistant '' 8 00 

Ball furnacemen * 12 00 

Underhand 6 00 

Charcoal lumpers 12 50 

Boilers* 12 75 

Assistant 7 00 

Metal refiners 11 00 

Plate rollers* 14 50 

Firemen 7 50 

Furnacemen* 12 50 

Forgemen* 13 50 

Levermen 7 50 

♦Piece- work. 

15 



Bogiemen $5 35 

Hammerdrins 7 50 

Patternmakers 7 00 

Moulders 7 50 

Fitters ., 7 00 

Laborers 5 00 

Iron nailers 9 00 

Spring fitters 9 00 

Assistant , 5 00 

Tire rollers 4 00 

Machinist (best) 8 50 

' ' (ordinary) 7 50 

(inferior) 6 00 

Rivet boys 120 

Engineers 7 00 



226 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



ELECTKO-PLATE TBADE. 



Stampers $8 00 

Piece workers 8 00 

Braziers 8 50 

Buffers 7 50 



Buffers (women) $4 00 

Chasers 9 00 

Engravers (women) 9 00 

Burnishers 2 60 



BRITANNIA METAL 



Spinners $12 00 

Stamper 7 50 

Casters 7 50 



Makers-up $8 00 

Burnishers (when plated). . 2 50 
Rubbers (girls) 2 50 



STEEL MANUFACTURE. 



Melters $15 00 

Turners 9 00 

Fitter out 9 00 



Coker $6 00 

Pot makers 9 00 

Collar lad 3 75 



FILES. 



Forgers $10 00 

Strikers 8 00 

Hardners 7 50 



Grinders $10 00 

Cutters 9 00 



SAWS. 



Long and circular saw 

smith $11 00 

Short do 825 



Grinders $11 00 

Handle workers 9 00 



EDGE TOOLS. 



Forgers $12 00 

Strikers 9 50 



Grinders $12 50 

Hardner 6 50 



SHEEP SHEARS. 



Forger ...$10 00 

Striker . 7 50 

Grinder 11 00 



Assistant $5 00 

Hardner 6 50 

Bender 8 00 



HAFLERS. 



Iron . . 
Bone. 



.$7 50 
. 7 00 



Others $5 50 



POCKET CUTLERY. 



Forgers $7 00 | Hafters. 

Grinders 8 00] 



.$6 50 



LABOR AND WAGES. 227 



TABLE CUTLERY. 



Forgers $7 50 I Grinders $8 00 

Strikers 7 00 | 



TABLE FORKS. 



Forgers $6 50 i Filers (women) $2 50 

Grinders 6 00 



SCISSORS. 



Forgers $12 00 

Grinders 12 00 

Filers 7 50 

Putters together 7 00 



Holers and handmen $6 75 

Burnishers (women) 3 00 

Dressers (women) 4 00 



RAZORS. 



Forgers .$12 00 

Strikers 10 00 

Grinders* 12 50 



Hafters $9 00 

PuttiDg-up women 2 50 



It will be seen that the very highest earnings are $14 50 a 
week, but that the general average weekly earnings of 
skilled labor in these trades is from $6 to $12. Unfortunately 
I have no statement of the wages paid in the same branches 
of manufacturing in the United States, though I have no 
doubt the Disstons of Philadelphia or some of the large 
cutlery firms would furnish such a schedule. According to 
Carroll D. Wright's last report (see pages 423 and 424) iron 
and steel workers in Massachusetts are paid as high as $28 87 ; 
laborers make about $10 a week ; skilled hands average about 
$15 to $20 ; and a careful examination and comparison, I think, 
wiU show a difference of from 50 to 75 per cent, and in some 
cases 100 per cent, in the wages paid in the two countries. Of 
course the calculation could be made with a greater degree 
of exactitude if as complete a statement for the United States 
is obtained as above presented for the United Kingdom. I 
feel sure that the above figures lean toward the English 
manufacturer. 

* Hollow- grinders can earn $15, but they are exceptional men and 
must work long hours. 



228 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD 

The actual book accounts of any Sheffield firm I think will 
not show quite the average amount indicated above paid out 
to each man for every week of the year. The rates given 
mean sixty hours steady and hard work — not a lost hour. 
They also mean the most skilled mechanics. Exceptional 
cases might be given, perhaps, of men earning more, but 
the average weekly earnings for twelve months would prob- 
ably be 10 or 15 per cent less than the above, counting in 
lost time, holidays, etc. 

With such wages as indicated by my tables, Dr. Webster 
says that few of the workmen own their houses, and that 
as a rule most of the week's salary has gone by Tuesday 
morning, when a good many of the grinders go to work. 
Prices have fallen during the last twenty-five years, as 
labor is paid less, with perhaps the single exception of hol- 
low grinding. The trade of Sheffield has undoubtedly fallen 
off, especially with the United States. Owing in part to the 
indifference of Sheffield workmen, who will not start a new 
Hne of goods until pushed out of the market, and in part to 
American ingenuity, it is not an uncommon thing for Shef- 
field to ship grindstones to Philadelphia to grind American 
saws, which are imported to England and sold side by side 
with Sheffield goods. In some lines of edged tools and cut- 
lery the United States excels Sheffield. 

I have endeavored to give a picture of the Sheffield of to-day 
the sixth largest town in England, with a population of 
nearly 300,000. For steel Sheffield is still the world's great 
work-shop, and it is estimated that nearly $20,000,000 worth 
of steel is annually made in the Sheffield district. I have 
no space even to enumerate the number of trades carried on 
in this busy hive of industry, nor can I give but a meagre 
idea of the progress made since the early part of the present 
century, when the cuttlers of Sheffield used to meet at 
Tommy Kose's, ^' The Bird in Hand." The business was 
conducted on pack-horses. When a buyer arrived the ostler 
would go round and notify the manufacturers. In those 
days the poor pack-horse went shambling along cross-roads, 



A WALK THROUGH THE POTTERIES. 229 

fording rivers, and climbing steeps. At a tinkle of a bell 
the traders came out from the inn and the bargains were 
made, the money paid, and the goods delivered. The cut- 
lers' annual feast cost^a few pounds, and home-brewed ale 
was the chief beverage. Sunday tipplers were put in the 
stocks. The good old dames, so big were their hoops, were 
steered into church with some difficulty. People were in- 
carcerated in jail for debts and alehouse scores, and the 
prisoners worked at their trades, hammering and filing 
away all day. Places in the London stage coach had to be 
engaged three weeks ahead, and a journey to that great city 
necessitated making one's will. Apprentices lived in their 
masters' houses, and were little better than household 
drudges. The "" old smithy" of those days has disappeared, 
and the factory and the factory act have taken its place. 
Within the memory of the Hving, bulls were publicly baited 
in Sheffield, and amid noise and clamor, passing gibes and 
cursings, and the yelping of dogs, *^ good game" might be 
had at ^' threepence a ship " for the dogs. These were fit- 
ting sports for barbarous days. In spite of the drawbacks 
of the present day, and in spite of the many things we 
wish were otherwise, and in spite even of the innumerable 
opportunities for improvement in dweUings, in education, 
in morals, and in all that tends to a higher civilization, in 
short, with all his shortcomings, the Sheffielder of to-day 
is better off, if he wants to be, than his ancestors. 



LVII. 
A Walk through the Potteries. 

The district of which this town is called the metropolis 
may be aptly described as *' A Babylon of Crockery." In- 
deed, had I not been accompanied in my walks through 
*'The Potteries" by Mr. Edward E. Lane, United States 



230 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD, 

Consul at Tunstall, and Col. Albert D. Shaw, United States 
Consul at Manchester, I should have lost myself even in the 
day-time in the series of dingy towns and most unrural 
villages that run into one another and sprawl for several 
miles along the bottom of what was once a picturesque 
valley. The Parlimentary borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, 
comprising a district of about ten miles by three, contains 
most of the pottery towns and villages, aU of which are 
adjoining and forming really one large scattered manufac- 
turing town, containing an aggregate population estimated 
to exceed 200,000. The chief towns of the district are 
Hanley, with a population of 5D,000; Burslem, with, 30,000; 
Longton and Lane End, with 20,000; Stoke-upon-Trent, with 
20,000; Fenton, with 15,000; and several other villages of 
less importance. Take a good map of Staffordshire and 
make a rectangle of four by seven miles and you have 
within an area of less than thirty square miles the pottery 
districts of England, in which seven-tenths of the pottery is 
made, employing 50, 000 persons, with an invested capital of 
over $10,000,000. 

The other noted pottery locaUties in England are Lam- 
beth, Worcester, Coalport, Broseley, and Watcombe ; but of 
the 517 pottery establishments in England and Wales, ac- 
cording to a calculation recently made by Consul Lane, 305 
are in this district, and they are more extensive than those 
elsewhere, some, Uke Minton's at Burslem, employing 2,000 
hands. Mr. Lane's estimate is as follows: Tunstall, 20; 
Burslem (including Cobridge), 85; Hanley, 65; Stoke 20; 
Fenton, 25; Longton, 90; total 305. To show how much 
more concentrated the English trade is than that of the 
United States, and how much more nearly a monopoly it is, 
I need only say that there are in the United States 686 es- 
tabhshments, employing less than 10,000 hands, against 305 
in Staffordshire, employing 50,000 hands. 

Accompanied by the Tunstall and Manchester Consuls, I 
walked through all the pottery towns. These places stretch 
and straggle along continuously. The whole district bristles 



A WALK THROUGH THE POTTERIES, 231 

with kilns of every conceivable shape and appearance, some 
like pyramids, some like big bellows without a nozzle, some 
like high-shouldered case-bottles, some like the typical 
American whisky-jug; in short, ^'some are ringed with 
with bulging rims ; some are varicosely veined with capri- 
ciously diverging cracks; some are castellated; some are 
pierced at the top as if for musketry ; some push out their 
plump proportion at an angle between two flat walls, like 
the corner towers of castles." The work-people all wear 
wooden shoes, which clatter on the footpaths. Public- 
houses and meeting-houses are alike plentiful. Steam tram- 
cars toil up the hills and rumble down with brake-locked 
wheels. ^* Donkeys," says Dr. Eowe, ^'with unpainted 
milk-cans, like magnified tea-canisters, rumble by; milk- 
men bearing green milk-cans in their hands, and milk- 
women dragging green milk-cans mounted on wheels trudge 
along. Coal-carts, red, black and blue, everywhere grind 
through the mud, or jolt over the frozen ruts." Canals, 
with long narrow barges floating on pea-soupy water, run 
alongside the potteries and litter their wharves — scored with 
narrow tramways and tiny turn-tables— with Cornish clay, 
coals, bones and flint. Everywhere there are potteries. 
Smoke, soot and flames make the air heavy. The cows and 
donkeys look melancholy and dusty. The yards and the 
streets are littered with mounds of smashed crockery and 
cracked ''saggers." 

On all sides of the waste ground are little streets, with old 
and miserable houses in which the potters live. We walked 
up and down scores of these streets in all the towns and 
found them much the same. The wages paid the great 
bulk of the potters only permit of their paying from 2s. 9d. 
to 3s. (75 cents) a week house rent. They Live in one room, 
in which washing and ironing, eating and, not infrequently, 
sleeping are done. The majority of the houses on these 
streets are anything but tidy and cheerful. Slovenly wo- 
men and dirty, ragged children came to the doors of the 
houses as we passed along, and the mere fact of three 



232 BREAD -WINNEB8 ABROAD, 

respectably dressed men walking through these streets 
excited the astonishment of the entire neighborhood, and a 
curious crowd followed at our heels. 

Mr. Lane informed me that the majority of the potters 
lived in this class of houses, which seem to be worse at 
Hanley and Longton than in the other towns. Of course 
there is a class of operatives who earn better wages and live 
in more comfortable dwellings, but the bulk of them reside 
in badly-ventilated, small houses. They rarely accumulate 
anything and seldom or never own their houses. A great 
deal of money is spent in drink. The chief recreations 
are during the *'wake seasons." In the potteries there 
are two kinds of wakes — the Stoke wakes and the Burslem 
wakes. At these times the potter will quit work for per- 
haps two weeks, or until all his money has been spent. He 
gives himself up to play. All sorts of shows come to town 
and establish themselves on the grassless vacant lots. Fat 
women, living skeletons, double-headed children, shooting, 
ball-throwing, merry-go-'rounds, *' sailing boats," minstrels, 
all sorts of curiosities and oddities and a general carnival of 
drink constitute these wakes. The entire business of the 
district is at a stand-still during these times. 

Years ago Sunday used to be a fair-day in the potteries, 
but I was told that now it was almost as quiet as a Glasgow 
Sunday. Dr. Eowe says that many of the potters are 
Methodists. A Sunday love-feast, as he describes it, would 
be a curious surprise to an American. The very date of the 
conversion is given, and the confessions of faith are unique. 
One brother spurned the thoughts of ^^blowin' hup the 
hashes of a hextinguished hexper'ence.' A second began: 
** Ah'm happy to see that ah knaw ah'm a sinner — preese 
the Lord." A third: ^'Ahken'tmek foin spee-aches loike 
soom folk." A fourth: "Ah ken't se as ah wor born o' 
pious parents, but ah went to schule wi Jesus Chroist, an' 
He teached me hall ah wahnt to knaw." 

Fifty years ago, instead of religious experiences, cock- 



« 



HANLEY— GROUND CLAY MADE PEBFEGT, 233 

fighting was the amusement. Ask any old potter about 
those days and he will reply : 

" Theer wor cockin' an' dog-foightins ther. Ah'd rayther 
see a cock-foight than a dog-battle any dee. The dogs 
weely worry theirselves to regs, boot the cocks, if they's 
any spoonk to 'm, soon gets it ower. It moostbe a game 
cockerel thaht 'uU stahnd the stale. Ah'd one once fowt 
for an how-er an' war hall coot hoop joost as if ye'd carved 



Lvm. 

Hanley— Ground Clay Made Perfect. 

It is not within the scope of this letter to explain the pro- 
cess of making pottery, which is very interesting, nor yet 
to describe the handsome showrooms, one of which (Min- 
ton's) the guide assured us was ^'the foinest showroom hin 
hall Hurup." In this room may be found the choicest pro- 
ducts of the potter's art, truly ''a congregation of ground 
clay made perfect." 

Such is the pottery district of England to-day. As far 
back as the beginning of the Eighteenth Century there was 
a manufacture of common cooking ware at Burslem. The 
art of producing the finest sorts was wholly neglected and 
they turned out nothing but a coarse porous ware called 
" butter- ware," and Burslem was marked on the map as the 
" Butter Pottery." Though possessing all the materials for 
the fabric of earthenware, England has hitherto depended 
almost entirely on the importation of a red, lustrous pottery 
from France, Germany and Italy. It was not until Josiah 
Wedgwood, with his skillful hand and artistic eye, began in 
this district that the industry attained any importance. In 
1801 the population of this district was 23,627; fco-day it is 
200,000. Up to the time of Wedgwood there had been noth- 



234 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

ing worthy of decorative art, of color, proportion, or form. 
A mixture of different colored clays, of rude outlines 
scratched in by a nail, a blue or brown edge-Hne, or a paste- 
Uke medallion luted to the surfaces, were the highest efforts 
of ornamental art. After all that had been done for the 
improvement of the different bodies, they were at best 
flimsy and indifferently glazed, the hue of the white ware 
was bad, and the forms and their adjuncts were ill-propor- 
tioned, often angular, and almost always without those 
flowing outlines that, while severely true to geometrical 
principles, show the utmost grace, delicacy and beauty, 
Wedgwood in his ware combined the imitation of the most 
beautiful forms of ancient art with unequalled cheapness. 
He inaugurated a system of improved designs, which made 
his ware superior to any other that had been produced in 
Europe for common uses. The old works, at Etruria, are still 
in use and are worth a visit. They are quaint and old-fash- 
ioned in appearance. Some additions have been made but 
nearly all the shops have low-roofed raftered ceilings, little 
square-paned windows, through which the light faintly 
comes, and in fact are precisely the same as when Wedg- 
wood, in the fullness of his powers, directed the industrial 
forces and produced perfect and beautiful work. 

The advantages enjoyed by the English manufacturers of 
pottery over the American are concentration of effort com- 
bined with an industrial existence of two centuries; the 
first century beginning with Burslem ^ ' butter- ware" and 
closing with the era of Wedgwood, and the second closing 
with Minton's magnificent show-room, with single plates 
costing $150, with schools of art, with the Wedgwood Insti- 
tute, and, withal, cheap skilled labor. At Minton's I saw 
artists working in the cooped-up rooms of the factory who 
would earn their thousands in the United States and be 
their own masters. 

A very large proportion of the earthen and china ware, 
Parian and porcelain made in England finds a market in 
the United States, and this in spite of the fact of the rapid 



HANLEY— GROUND CLAY MADE PERFECT. 235 

strides we have made in their manufacture, which, how- 
ever, have materially reduced the cost to the consumer. 
In the decade ending with 1882 no less than $31,076,100 
worth of those goods were exported to the United States 
from this district alone— averaging over $3,000,000 annually. 
This does not represent our total importation, which in 1881 
amounted to fifty-three per cent of what we consumed. 
The value of exports from England to all countries in 1880 
was: earthen and china ware, Parian and porcelain (not 
including red pottery and brown-stone ware), $9,902,275; 
brown-stoneware, $2,759,440; clay unmanufactured, $759,- 
790; clay manufactured, $878,940; total value, $14,400,445. 
The total value of the product, according to the census of 
1880, of all the potteries, stone-ware and porcelain manu- 
factories in the United States was only $7,943,229, about 
half the value of the British exports for the same year. 

The EngUsh manufacturers complain of the shght increase 
in the tariff on the finest class of goods and say it will work 
a great injury here. They frankly admit that the progress 
in this Hne of business in the United States has been wonder- 
ful. Says Mr. H. R. Fox Bourne in his history of pottery 
in England: ''The trade may be said to have been fairly 
entered upon in 1870, and while Trenton already abounds in 
factories and bids fair to be the Burslem of the United States, 
the business is extending to East Liverpool in Ohio, Green- 
point, New York, and other places." General Tyndall, 
another English authority, in speaking of American enter- 
prise in this hne, said: *'The prices of their wares are very 
low in relation to the cost of labor in the United States, 
The processes employed are of the most improved kind, and 
the potteries are well arranged, very orderly and highly 
commendable. All the materials used are found in the 
United States." 

Of course England is still ahead, but the giant strides 
which the trade is now taking in the United States are not 
thought lightly of here. The wages paid in Egland are very 
low, far more than fifty per cent lower than in the United 



236 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

States. Last year during a strike the employees published 
what they claimed was a true table of the average net earn- 
ings per man per week, with all deductions for attendance 
and other purposes. Summarized it was as follows. I have 
added the average rate of the Trenton operatives: 

Av'ge earn- 
ings in 
American 
£ s. d. potteries. 

Flat presser 1 11 10— $7 70 $20 30 

Dish-maker 1 19 9— 9 62 19 43 

Cup-maker 2 19 0— 9 92 19 67 

Saucer-maker 1 12 9— 7 93 18 58 

Hand-basin maker 1 19 11— 9 66 19 73 

Hollow-ware presser 1 13 7— 8 14 17 90 

Hollow ware presser jigger. . . 2 8 j — 11 62 21 89 

Printer 1 7 1— 6 55 13 56 

Ovenman 1 8 4— 6 86 13 18 

Sagger-maker 1 14 11— 8 46 19 33 

Mold maker 2 2 3— 10 23 20 79 

Turner 113 1— 8 00 16 97 

Handler 114 8— 8 39 16 62 

Total average per man 
per week £1 15 10 $8 69 $18 50 

The English workman, however, claimed that the part re- 
ferring to the English trade was too high, and a careful 
statement was furnished Consul Lane in behalf of the men, 
showing that the average earnings were only £1. lis., or 
about $7.50, per week against $18.50 in the United States. 
But I pointed out to Mr. Lane that these averages did not 
indicate the earnings of the majority of the potters in Eng- 
land nor in the United States, and I suggested to him that 
to complete the work, he should find out what proportion, 
say in one hundred, were hollow-ware presser jiggers, receiv- 
ing $11.62 a week, and what proportion were ovenmen 
receiving only $6.86. Incompliance with this request I have 
this morning received the following from Mr. Lane: 

In an earthenware manufactory for making plain white 
goods, employing say 200 people of both sexes and all ages, 
including the Skilled hands and their attendants, there will 
be on an average of men in the different branches of work, 



HANLET—OROUND CLAY MADE PERFECT. 237 

as follows : Hollow- ware pressors 32 ; flat pressors 6 ; dish- 
makers 4; hand-basin makers 1; cup-makers 3; saucer-mak- 
ers 4; handlers 2; turners 4; sagger-makers 5 ; ovenmen21; 
mold-makers 3 ; total 85 of what may be called skilled work- 
men. If the ware made is to be printed, but otherwise of 
the same kind as aboTO, 40 employees must be added for that 
department. 

Here then are about three-fourths of the operators at $8 14 
and $6 86 a week, if we take the employees' estimate (which 
is disputed by the men). Then the printers, of whom Mr. 
Lane] says there would be 40 in a factory employing 200 
hands in whiteVare, are the lowest paid of aU — only $6 55 per 
week. All three of these classes, aggregating undoubtedly 
over three-fourths of the entire skilled labor of the Pottery 
District, receive far less than the average. I have merely 
gone into these details to show the absurdity of averaging 
wages. The unskilled hands in those potteries make from 
4s. or $1, to perhaps £1, or $5 a week. 

**How much do you make?" said I to a dark-eyed young 
woman in the print shop. 

** Ah moost do a many to mek oot mah dee's work." 
How much money a week, I mean?" 
" Oh, we doan't make more than ten shiUins." 
The only fair method of comparing wages is to take the 
same department of work in each country. For example, 
plate makers in England average $7.50 a week; in the 
United States $20.30. Enghsh dish-makers make $9.62; 
Americans $19.43. English cup-makers $9.92; Americans 
$19.67. And so on through the list. It is not so much in 
the skilled work that the British workman has cause to 
complain, but I have found throughout England that great 
suffering exists among the laboring classes and those whose 
work does not require much skill. For example, in the 
Enghsh potteries, according to the masters, the hoUow-ware 
pressor, the oven-man, and the printer (representing over 
three-fourths of the skilled labor) receive $8.14, $6.86 and 
$6.55 respectively; while in the United States they receive 



238 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD, 

$17.90, $13.18 and $13.67 respectively. In short, with the 
additional high pay in the United States for the unskilled 
labor, and for the lads and girls, it puts what I may call the 
bone and sinew of the trade on a living basis, where they 
can live comfortably and save money, own their homes and 
be men and women. It is this class that feel more severely 
than any other a reduction of wages, and it is this class, for 
they are after all the many, that give strength, character, 
and prosperity to a country. It is an undoubted fact that 
three-fourths of the people of the entire pottery district live 
on 25s. ($6) or less a week per man. What can that buy 
them? Consul Lane has kindly given me an average esti- 
mate of the weekly expense of a man with a wife and two- 
children (a small family in England), whose income for the 
year round averages 25s. ($6) a week. Here it is, and a per- 
usal shows the grotesqueness of the cry of cheap clothes. 
Admitting there is any difference in the price of the common 
grades of clothing (which I begin seriously to doubt) at home 
and here, the bulk of Enghsh potters, according to their own 
statements, have but 50 cents a week to invest, aside from 
actual cost of keeping body and soul together: 

s, d. s, d. 

Eents 3 Tea (2s. lb) 1 6 

Rates 4i Sugar (3id. lb) 1 2 

Club 5 Soap (3d. lb) 6 

Coal 2 Flour (2d. lb) 6 

Bread 4 li Candles (6d. lb) 3 

Bacon (8d. lb) 1 4 Milk.(4d. quart) 4 

Cheese (6d. lb) 1 4 Tobacco 5 

Butter (Is. 4d. lb) 1 4 Beer 1 

Potatoes (31b Id.) 5 Clothes 2 



Butchers\meat (8d.lb). 3 



Total £1 5 00 



I have endeavored, imperfectly I know, to ascertain the 
real condition of the English potters, and, at least, the facts 
presented are worth a careful examination, especially by the 
American workman. He ought to feel sure of his present 
condition before he takes the leap in the dark. 



BIRB'SETE VIEW OF ENGLAND'S FACTOMIES. 239 

LIX. 

Bird's-eye View of England's Factories. 

The present letter may be called a bird's-eye view of the 
distribution of the principal industries. Before we can 
compare the several industries of Great Britain with those 
in the United States, it is necessary to have clearly in mind 
the important matter of distribution, and a careful study 
will reveal that entire regions of country in Great Britain 
have, in some instances, for centuries, been given over to 
the production of certain classes of manufactured goods. 
Another important element that must be considered is that 
frequently in England the father, the grandfather, and the 
great-grandfather have followed a certain line of business, 
and workmen are consequently, as a rule, more expert, 
owing to the fact that they and their ancestors have been so 
long engaged in the same handicraft. The great variety of 
these industries, in an area but little larger than Illinois, 
must be borne in mind, and if at times this letter may seem 
a little wearisome, the reader must remember that when I 
come to a comparison of the number of hands employed, the 
wages paid, the annual product, the material used, the 
manner the artisans live, the comparative rates of wages 
paid, and the other more interesting elements of the ques- 
tion, some knowledge of the distribution of industries in the 
two countries will be of the greatest value. 

It takes a map with 140 symbols, each indicating a separ- 
ate industry, to give a bird's-eye view of the industrial 
condition of the English people. I have such a map before 
me in giving the present summary of the industries of 
England. These industries are scattered thickly over the 
island, and, with the exception of North and West Wales, 
Devonshire, Sussex, Lincolnshire, the East Eiding of York- 
shire, and a strip of country beginning at Preston, in 



240 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

Lancaster, and running northward into Westmoreland, and 
thence through Southern Cumberland into the northern 
part of Northumberland, the whole of England is thickly- 
dotted with manufacturing centers of all kinds. With 
Scotland the case is different, and if we were to take a strip 
of country forty miles wide, from the Firth of Clyde on the 
west to the Firth of Tay, and the Firth of Forth on the east, 
the rest of the country might be said to be agricultural. In 
Ireland the manufacturers cluster in sickly spots around 
Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, Belfast, Londonderry, Sligo, 
Galway, Limerick and Cork, hardly venturing into the 
interior. 

The manufacture upon which Great Britain rests her 
reputation most completely is unquestionably that of iron 
and steel, which is carried on to a very large extent, but as 
I have touched on this branch of the subject already in a 
letter exclusively devoted to the iron and steel manufac- 
tures of England, it will not be necessary to enter into 
details now. England produces about six million tons 
of pig iron annually, the largest portion of which comes 
from the great Cleveland district, the second most im- 
portant district being that of South Wales, the Merthyr 
Tydvil region. Copper is smelted almost exclusively 
in four counties, Glarmorgen, Caermarthen, Anglesea, 
and Lancaster. W. and A. K. Johnston have recently pub- 
Hshed a statistical atlas of England, Scotland and Ireland, 
which has been edited by G. Philhps Bevan, and in which 
are summarized the results of the last British census (1881). 
From this magnificent book, together with the information 
obtained by visiting the principal industrial centers of the 
Empire, I am enabled to give some idea of the industrial 
condition of Great Britain at the present time. 

The various branches of trade which ramify from the 
iron manufacture are very numerous, and engineering and 
machine-making may be said to rank first. Nearly all the 
great seaports of England, and many of the inland towns as 
well, have an engineering or locomotive factory on a large 



BIRD'S ETE VIEW OF ENGLAND'S FACTORIES. 241 

scale, though Manchester and Newcastle are pre-eminent in 
this respect. Iron ship-building thrives most on the Clyde 
(Glasgow), the Tyne (Newcastle), the Mersey (Birkenhead), 
and the Wear (Sunderland) , while it also prevails to a great 
extent at Hull, Bristol, Chester, Southampton, and other 
ports. 

Agricultural implement making in England, as in the 
United States, naturally seeks the inland towns, and, while 
in Illinois it has brought prosperity and wealth to such 
towns as Eock Island, Mohne, and Rockford, so in England 
it has largely developed many towns in the eastern or agri- 
cultural part of the kingdom. 

Of the smaller branches of the manufacture of iron and 
steel goods, such as are included under the general appella- 
tion of hardware, the number is very considerable, as is 
also the localization of each branch. At Dudley, Cradley, 
and Halesowen nails are made by hand, but it is a trade, it 
is said, that is destined to die out. Machinery and strikes 
have robbed it of its vital force. Some forty or fifty years 
ago this trade employed 50,000 hands. About 20,000 is now 
the number. At one time a nail shop was attached to 
almost every farm-house in the nailing districts, and the 
farmer and his family hammered away at iron rods when 
farm work was slack, and at one time, it is said, the nailers 
were perhaps the roughest people in all England. At elec- 
tion times they would attack the yeomanry with heated 
iron rods and Utter the ground with iron spikes to lame the 
horses. Drinking (only to get drunk), gambling, bull-bait- 
ing, cock and dog fighting were the nailers' favorite amuse- 
ments. The three last still Hnger on the sly among the 
lowest classes of nailers, but as public amusements they 
have shared for the last twenty years the fate of the previ- 
ously put down bull-baiting. 

Machine-made nails are fast pushing the hand-made trade 
to the waU, and the principal machine nail factories are 
located in Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, and Newport. 

Chains and anchors form a heavy branch of the iron 
16 



342 BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD, 

trade, and are principally made at Cradley, Gateshead and 
Pontypridd. Locks are more localized than nails, and the 
subdivisions of labor among the various lock towns are very 
curious. Wolverhampton, Willenhall, Bloxwich, Walsall, 
and Brewood not only possessing specialties for lock-mak- 
ing, but each for a peculiar kind of lock. Birmingham and 
Wolverhampton are the chief centers of the tool trade, 
though by far the greater portion of the cutlery produced 
in England is made at Sheffield, which has been from time 
immemorial celebrated for its steel, made from Swedish 
iron, by the cementation process. The number of table and 
pen knives, razors, forks, scissors, saws, surgical instru- 
ments, files, sickles, etc., turned out annually from Sheffield 
is enormous, and the reputation of Sheffield cutlery is still 
very high. Needles and fish-hooks are principally made at 
Redditch and Alcester (Worcester) and Hathersage (Derby), 
while pins are a production of Birmingham, Dublin, War- 
rington and Bristol. The headquarters of the button trade, 
of whatever material they are, whether metal, pearl, vege- 
table, ivory, glass, bone, wood, porcelain, or covered buttons, 
are almost entirely at Birmingham, as are those of the 
steel-pen trade. Birmingham is the oldest seat of the gun 
and firearm manufacture, though of late years factories 
have been established at other places, as at Enfield (Middle- 
sex) and Reading, while for heavy ordnance the Armstrong 
factory, at Eiswick, near Newcastle, is the most prominent. 
Screws, nuts and bolts, now used by the hundred million, 
are made at Birmingham. Darlaston (Warwick) and Com- 
bran (Monmouth), where also wire is largely produced, 
together with Bristol, Warrington, Manchester and Sheffield. 
Wolverhampton and Sheffield are the principal seats of the 
spring trade. 

Seven-tenths of the pottery trade of England is located in 
the district known as "" the potteries." It has been said by 
Mr. Gladstone that this industry may very properly be 
called national by Great Britain, because earthenware in 
its varied and innumerable branches is fast becoming, or has 



BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ENGLAND'S FACTORIES. 243 

indeed become, one of the great and distinguishing British 
manufactures. This district occupies a portion of North 
Staffordshire, and includes the towns of Stoke-upon-Trent, 
Etruria, Cobridge, Hanley, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Fenton, 
Burslem, Tunstall and Longston, a district that has increased 
in population from 23, 626 in 1801 to about 200,000, and the 
greatest proportion of this population are dependent upon 
the manufacture of porcelain and stoneware. 

The great divisions of British textile trades are those of 
cotton, wool, flax and silk, each of which will be treated 
separately in this series. The bulk of the cotton trade is 
found in Lancashire, in which it is the chief and most 
absorbing occupation of cities and towns like Manchester, 
Liverpool, Preston, Blackburn, Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Old- 
ham, Chorley, Burnley, Padinam, Accrington, Middletown, 
Bacup and countless villages. 

The chief cotton centers of Scotland are Glasgow, Paisley,, 
and a few of the Ayrshire towns. The woolen trade has its 
chief quarters in Yorkshire, where every variety of this 
branch of textiles is produced, though with a curious locali- 
zation of variety. In former times the woolen manufacture 
of the kingdom was chiefly in the western counties ; indeed, 
at the beginning of the eighteenth century the west of 
England was the seat of the greatest commercial and manu- 
facturing industry of the kingdom. It was not until the 
days of steam power and the application of chemical science 
to manufactures that Leeds became celebrated for its cloths, 
Bradford for its worsted and stuffs, Dewsbury for its army 
clothing, Batley for its shoddy, and other towns, such as 
Hahfax, Huddersfield, Brighouse, Wakefield and Meltham, 
with many a smaller one, became dependent upon wool and 
its preparation. 

In the forgotten poem of *'The Fleece" accurate as well 
as pleasing pictures of the weaving labors of the olden times 
are given, and form a wonderful contrast to the rush and 
bustle of the great cloth towns of Yorkshire. In that pretty, 
poetic story, the young man, entering upon his career of 



244 



BEE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 



industry, sets up his own loom ; he stores his soft yarn ; he 
strains the warp along his garden walk or by the highway 
side ; he drives the thready shuttle from morn till eye ; he 
takes the web to the fulling-mill, near some clear-sHding 
risrer, where tumbling waters turn enormous wheels and 
hammers ; the wet web is often steeped, and often dragged 
by sinewy arms to the river's grassy bank ; it is hung on 
rugged tenters to brighten in the fervid sun ; the clothier's 
shears and the burler's thistle skim the surface ; and lastly, 
the snowy web is steeped in boiling vats, where wood or 
fustic, logwood or cochineal, give their hues to the purple of 
the prince, the scarlet of the warrior and the black of the 
priest. Knight has aptly said: ^^ There can be no greater 
contrast than that of the woolen trade of the west a century 
and a half ago, with a cloth factory of the north in our own 
times, where, with the gigantic aid of steam, wool from 
every quarter of the habitable globe is carded, spun, woven 
by the power loom, fulled, sheared, and dyed in buildings, 
one of which would turn out more cloth than a dozen old 
clothing towns with their tributary villages." 

The flax and linen manufacture is one in which Scotland 
and Ireland take the lead, although it is extensively carried 
on in certain towns in England, such as Leeds and Barnsley , 
and to a lesser extent in Somerset and Dorset. A letter 
from Judge Kelley requested me to especially look into the 
linen iadustry, the seat of which, owing to the introduction 
of machinery, is now at Belfast. 

According to the report of the Max Supply Association 
for 1881, there were then 927,295 spindles and 21,177 power 
looms. The following table shows the changes in this indus- 
try in Belfast from 1850 to 1879: 



Linen Factories. 


1850. 


1860. 


1870. 


1879. 


Factories 


69 
396,338 

58 
21,121 


100 

592.981 

4,666 

33,526 


154 

916,550 

14,834 

55,039 


144 


Spindles 


826,743 


Power looms 


19,611 
56,342 


Persons employed 



BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ENGLAND'S FA C TOBIES. 245 

The flax and linen manufacture is also a staple trade in 
Scotland, especially in the counties of Forfar, Perth, Fife, 
Kinross and Clackmannan, where the towns of Dumferm- 
Hne, Kinross, Falkland, Markinch, Forfar, Kirriemuir, 
Alyth, Montrose, Cupar, Blairgowrie, Alva, TiUicoultry, 
etc., are almost entirely occupied with hnens. It is also the 
great trade of Ireland, and especially of Northern Ireland. 
A large proportion of Ulster generally is occupied agricul- 
turally with flax crops, while the towns are busy with 
the spinning and weaving. Belfast, Portadown, Coleraine, 
Banbridge, Ballymena, Eandalstown, Magherafelt, Hills- 
borough, Newry, etc., are aU so many centers of the linen 
manufacture, although it is sporadically found in other 
parts of the country. 

The silk trade is principally localized in Cheshire, Derby- 
shire, Lancashire, and some of the eastern and midland 
coimties. Nottingham is still the center of the cotton, 
hosiery, and bobbinnet trade. The final success was achieved 
when Mr. Heathcote invented the bobbinframe, whence 
machine-made lace obtained the name of bobbin-net, and 
made Nottingham famous even in the bazaars of East India. 
The lace trade, as far as factory work is concerned, is almost 
exclusively confined to England, there being 282 factories 
in the counties of Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester, but a 
good deal of domestic work is carried on in various forms, 
principally pillow lace, in those of Bucks, Oxford, Beds, and 
Devon, while Ireland furnishes guipure lace from Limerick. 
Hosiery, as a factory trade, is largely carried on in the 
counties of Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Eutland and 
Lincoln, and in Scotland in those of Eoxburgh (Hawick and 
Galashiels being the two chief centers), Dumfries, Kirkcud- 
bright and Wigtown. The hand trade is, however, found 
in many scattered places as far north as the Shetland Isles, 
and in Ireland at Balbriggan. 

The annual value of the product from the chemical trades 
alone in 1880 was over $50,000,000. The chief localities of 
the manufacture of this class of industries are Widnes and 



246 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

St. Helen's in Lancashire, the East End of London on the 
banks of the Thames, and Lea, the banks of the Wear and 
Tyne, Leeds, Glasgow and several other industrial towns. 
Soap, candle and oil works are more scattered, and generally- 
speaking are found in the neighborhood of great points, 
such as London, Liverpool, Bristol, Hull, etc. The largest 
candle works in the kingdom are probably those at Batter- 
sea, on the Surrey side of the Thames. Matches, too, 
whether lucif er or wax, are subsidiary trades, found in the 
outskirts of the large towns, such as London, Manchester, 
and Birmingham, though the former city contains at least 
nine-tenths of the best known makers of these famihar 
articles. The manufacture of explosives is naturally very 
localized, powder mills being usually placed in the most 
inaccessible and sparsely populated districts, where the 
risks of explosion are minimized, such as near Dartford, 
Ewell, Elter water (Westmoreland), Waltham (Herts), March- 
wood (Hants), Ballicolig (Cork), Kilmelfort (Argyll). This 
does not so much apply to other kinds of explosives, such as 
gun-cotton, made at Faversham (Kent), and Stowmarket 
(Suffolk), or to percussion caps and cartridges, which are 
usually produced in the outskirts of towns like Birmingham 
and Wolverhampton, though one of the largest exists in 
Gray's Inn Road, in the heart of London. The manufacture 
of artificial manures is found in many towns, with a ten- 
dency to localize in those of East England, which are the 
centers of agricultural industry. 

Nearly 30,000 hands are employed in the paper trade in 
about 350 paper mills, from which the annual turnout of 
paper is nearly 350,000,000 pounds in weight. The chief 
localities of this industry are Kent (Valleys of the Cray 
and Darenth), Bucks (Wycombe), Herts (Rickmans worth, 
Hemel, Hempstead, etc.), Surrey, Devon, Durham, Lancas- 
ter and York; in Scotland, those of Edinburgh (Lasswade), 
Lanark, Fife and Aberdeen; in that of Ireland, that of 
Dublin. 

The printing trade is more important than that of paper 



BIRD'S-ETE VIEW OF ENGLAND'S FACTORIES, 347 

as regards the number of industrials. Every town of the 
kingdom has a printing establishment of more or less size, 
while of late years it has been the fashion for the metropoli- 
tan printers to build factories in country places, where 
expenses are less, or to contract for much of their work 
being done by country printers. London and Edinburgh 
are the great centers of printing and bookbinding. There 
are probably over sixty thousand persons employed in the 
printing trade, and about sixteen thousand in bookbinding. 
Under the head of fibers large interests are involved, 
especially in the manufacture of ropes and cordage. Eop- 
eries are adjuncts of most of the large towns. For colliery 
purposes hemp ropes have been ahnost entirely superseded 
by wire ropes. The leather trade, as far as tanning and 
currying are concerned, is found in almost every town of 
any size in the kingdom, though as a specialty the city of 
Bristol probably exceeds every other. India rubber and 
gutta percha only employ about 6,000 persons, though the 
manufacture of India rubber goods is fast increasing. The 
brewing and distilling industries in England are simply 
enormous. The cost to the nation is, first, in the material 
consumed in the manufacture, which is represented by the 
employment of 300,000 persons; secondly, in the manufac- 
ture and distribution, occupying 600,000 more; and the food, 
etc., required for the maintenance of these, equivalent to 
200,000 more; thus bringing up the numbers employed in 
the production to 1,100,000, which constitutes one tenth of 
the producing power of the United Kingdom. Malting has 
its locale, as a rule, in the agricultural districts, so that we 
find eastern county towns like Newark, Grantham, Retford, 
Hertford, Ware, etc., devoted to this branch. Breweries 
are, on the other hand, the adjimcts of any town of any 
size— London, Biu'ton-on-Trent, Edinburgh, Alloa and Dub- 
lin being the best known in connection with the familiar 
drinks of ale, beer and porter. Distilling, though carried 
on to a considerable extent in London, is a special trade 
both in Scotland and Ireland, where an enormous amount 



248 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

of whiskey is annually made. Sugar-refining is carried on 
chiefly in Liverpool, Bristol, London, Glasgow and Greenock, 
and employs about e5,000 persons. 



LX. 

Cardiff and Swansea. 



The journey from Bristol to Cardiff on a cold, bleak, 
rainy day in March is anything but inspiring. At '^New 
Passage" we were all turned out of the train and had to 
shiver on the jetty until a couple of primitive ^^ lifts" had 
lowered the " luggage." Wistful were the looks of the pas- 
sengers toward the spot on the banks of the Severn where 
the Great Western tunnel works are progressing, and every 
one said to every one, ^'When will the tunnel under the 
Severn be completed ?" No one knew. The wind was bit- 
ter, the rain was penetrating, and the red, muddy water 
splashed and rushed amid the wooden piers. After about 
fifteen minutes waiting a bell rang and down rushed the 
half-frozen passengers into a ferry-boat, and after a dis- 
agreeable passage we landed in Monmouthshire and were 
soon on the road to Newport. I was anxious to reach Car- 
diff that night, so did not stay long at Newport, which has 
recently been described, very aptly I think, as ^'a strange, 
busy, primitive, pushing and sagacious town." The streets 
are long, the hilly byways are numerous and very steep, 
the houses are for the most part flat, shallow and uninter- 
esting, the shops are of the cheap order— something like 
Dewsbury — and the thoroughfares are said to overflow with 
children. The latter statement I do not make on my own 
authority. Says the author of a very interesting series of 
papers in The Daily Telegraph on ' ' The British Channel 
Ports"; '^Boys and girls sprawl about the pavement (of 
Newport) in shoals. From time to time indignant house- 



CARDIFF AND SWANSEA. 249 

holders dart out of their doors and threaten them and a 
scamper instantly follows, but back they come again in 
flights." 

To an American, however, all these Welsh ports present 
nothing very novel. Newport is truly ^^a town in the 
making," and there are many such towns in America, espe- 
cially in the West. A free hbrary had recently been 
opened, a wing of a public infirmary completed and a park 
presented to the city. These events were, of course, cele- 
brated in the Western fashion. The police, the fire-engine, 
his worship the Mayor, the Council, the clergy, and the 
volunteers, followed by an array of pilots, compositors, 
boiler-makers, bakers, wagons, vans, etc., with a display of 
bunting, formed a procession and the town blazed in glory 
for a day. Newport has nearly 40,000 population. The 
shipping business is extensive and a small amount of ship- 
building is carried on. It is a busy, progressive place, but 
of no special interest as a manufacturing town. 

I arrived at Cardiff late in the evening, and after trying 
in vain to obtain accommodation at the four principal 
hotels, was informed at the Eoyal that the Boots might be 
able to find me '*a room over the way." I followed the 
Boots, and thereby obtained a garret, with a skylight for a 
window, a rickety chair, a bedstead, washstand, glass nailed 
to the wall, and a square yard of three-ply carpet for furni- 
ture. 

'' What is going on in town ?" I said to the Boots. 

*' Nothing, sir," he replied; ^'Cardiff grows so fast that 
the hotel accommodation is insufficient. Why, we are a 
hundred thousand now." 

And the Boots was right. Cardiff has grown of late 
years from a very insignificant place to an important port. 
It and Swansea are in fact the two outlets to the great coal- 
fields of South Wales, and around them have clustered a 
variety of industries. 

According to the census of 1881 the population of Wales 
was 1,360,000. Glamorganshire, in which Cardiff, Swansea 



250 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

and Merthyr Tidvil are situated, contained 512,000, and in- 
dustrial Wales contains over one half of the entire popula- 
tion of Wales. Including Monmouthshire — and it is almost 
impossible to speak of industrial Wales without including 
Monmouthshire, which, for apparent reasons, I shall con- 
sider with Wales— and taking the population in a radius of 
twenty-five miles around Cardiff, we have a total of 563,280. 
The same radius around Swansea would give 404,498. In- 
deed, until the development of South Wales the whole of 
that part of the United Kingdom was sparsely settled Coud 
of no economic importance or interest. In the present let- 
ter I shall treat of the two ports, and in a second from this 
locaUty, give an account of a visit to Merthyr Tidvil and a 
walk from there to Dowlais and of a visit among the Welsh 
coal miners and iron-workers. 

The history of Cardiff during this century is considered 
by Enghshmen *' a commercial romance," though it is what 
Americans would call ordinary commercial progress. At 
the opening of the present century, eight pages of a direc- 
tory gave the list of the inhabitants of Cardiff. It will be 
gratifying to know that at that early day nine of the towns- 
people were styled ''gentry." Under the somewhat gen- 
eric head ''Physic," four persons described themselves as 
*' surgeons, apothecaries and men-midwives." There were 
five lawyers, and nearly every one else was classified under 
the head "Traders." Multitudinous characters were these 
old Welshmen, and here again they remind one of the 
pioneers of the West. The peaceful loom is combined with 
the implements of war in the person of one citizen described 
as a " linen- weaver and sergeant-major"; literature and 
foresight in another, who was a ' ' printer, bookseller, clerk 
to the Marquis of Bute and insurance agent." The fair 
Elizabeth Jones was a "draper, hat-dealer and maltster." 
Her namesake Tom Jones was a "dealer in earthenware, 
and tailor." John Mogan was a "baker and mason," and 
Edward Whiting a "tailor and soap-boiler," while John 
Stibbs held the enviable position of " perukemaker, bleeder 



CABDIFF AND SWANSEA. 251 

and tooth-drawer" to the community, which then numbered 
less than 1000. The definition of *' trader" in Cardiff has 
always been a broad one, and as late as 1830 included 
schoolmasters, cashiers of banks, auctioneers, architects or 
French drawing masters, organists and music masters, 
book-keepers, and the governors of the jail. At that time 
the population had only reached 6187, and twenty years 
later (1851), only 18,351. In 1861 it had nearly doubled; in 
1871 it reached 60,000, and to-day is nearly 100,000. The 
beginning of this progress dates from the construction of 
the canal from Merthyr Tidvil to Cardiff; the second period 
in what the population has doubled from the construction 
of the docks. Within the last twenty-five years ever $15, 
000,000 has been laid out in the construction of docks in the 
port of Cardiff. In five years $1,500,000 has been ex- 
pended on the streets. The value of the exports foo^ the 
port of Cardiff has increased from $14,000,000 in 1876 to 
$20,610,000 in 1880, while the imports aggregate $12,000,000. 
No town displays such a strange intermixture of feudal 
restriction and modern progress as Cardiff does. The whole 
place is practically owned by Lord Bute, whose annual 
income is about $1,500,000, and whose agents have become 
nothing short of petty tyrants. When the ancestors of his 
Lordship first appeared upon the scene they undoubtedly 
helped the town by some bold railway and dock enterprises. 
At the present time the Marquis of Bute stops the car of 
progress and unless Cardiff can free itself from its present 
owner, it will never become the great port its townspeople 
so devoutly wish. The inhabitants appreciate this, and 
have recently offered to purchase the freedom of their own 
docks for $12,500,000 from the Marquis. As it now is, 
Cardiff is Lord Bute and Lord Bute is a fanatic who wanted 
to be a monk. The pubHc buildings, the churches, the 
houses, are either Lord Bute's, or built by Lord Bute, or in 
some way connected with his Lordship or his Lordship's 
father — in fact, Lord Bute is indeed the tutelary genius of 
Cardiff. The independent freehelds are a mere bagatelle, 



252 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



and the whole of Cardiff may be said to be owned by his 
Lordship. Besides this he has large estates in Scotland, 
Bedfordshire, and Newcastle, but eight- tenths of his income 
is extracted from Cardiff. His complete monopoly of the 
land gives his agents the power to punish all tenants who 
are not politically friendly with his Lordship, and this 
power, I was told on good authority, was very often used, 
as actual instances of outrageous treatment of tenants were 
given. 

In consequence of this, ground rents are high and house 
rents higher in Cardiff* than any town I have yet visited 
in the kingdom. The very lowest rate paid by working- 
men is from 6s. ($1.50) to 8s. ($2) a week. These houses 
have a front and back room, kitchen behind, small wash 
house, and up stairs, two or three bed-rooms. The result is 
that at least two famiHes are obliged to crowd into each of 
these little houses. As a rule, in England the number of 
voters in a town the size of Cardiff reaches about 15,000 but 
in Cardiff the system of two families in a house reduces the 
number of householders and robs a poor man of his right to 
vote, the voting strength of the town being only 9000. 

But in spite of the drawbacks of the aristocratic owner, 
the Cardiff people have plenty to do and seem very busy 
doing it. The docks during the day swarm with people of 
all nationalities, and the principal streets of Cardiff night 
have, not inaptly been compared to Ratchff Highway, 
London. The shops are tolerably large and the houses of a 
fair size. A couple of gas stars blazing over doorways 
about a hundred feet distant from each other denote the 
existence of music halls. The electric light operates here 
and there; and there are hotels, a theatre and other evi- 
dences of advanced civilization. But for aU that, says a 
well-informed Londoner, there are suggestions of the 
famous Highway. Jack is everywhere, drunk and bawling, 
full of laughter and lurches, sailing under all sorts of colors, 
and talking every language spoken from China to Peru. 
Now he is a negro in a tall hat, cigar and cucumber legs; 



CARDIFF AND SWANSEA. 253 

now a Norwegian in red shirt, or a Finn in a fur cape, cr a 
Dane in a shiny cloth. Such is the motley crowd one meets 
at night on the streets of Cardiff. 

Swansea is not such a progressive place as Cardiff. Dur 
ing the last ten years the population of the former increased 
23 per cent and the latter 43 per cent. The two towns have 
lately been competing for the location of the proposed 
University College for South Wales and Monmouthshire, 
and Cardiff has won the day. I have been furnished with 
briefs of the arguments on both sides, including colored 
maps showing the distribution of population, of agricul- 
ture, mining and manufacturing wealth. The figjit was a 
lively one, and I seriously doubt if a citizen of Swansea 
would during it have spoken to a citizen of Cardiff. Poor 
Mr. Mundella, the vice-president of the Council on Educa- 
tion, was perplexed. He wanted to shift the responsibility 
of deciding the question of location, and suggested that 
Swansea and Cardiff fight it out and settle it. In the mean- 
time, torrents of argument on both sides poured in upon the 
right honorable gentleman. Swansea claimed the college 
because she had voted $100,000 for it; because her indus- 
tries exceeded those of any town in the world ; because it 
was was the center of population; because of its magnificent 
bay, and because no town was comparable to it. On the 
other hand, Cardiff published a colored map showing its 
wonderful growth, its network of railroads, its marvellous 
docks and tremendous possibilities, and lastly claimed vocif- 
erously that twenty years ago it had subscribed $20,000 for 
the college when Swansea only offered $835. For my own 
part, after listening to the arguments on both sides, and 
bringing away a large bundle of maps and pamphlets on 
the subject from each town, I think the arbitrators decided 
wisely and that Cardiff is the place for the college. 

In March the Bay of Swansea is not very beautiful. The 
town itseff is filled with the vapors of spelter, tin-plate and 
copper smelting. It is noted for its docks, which are very 
fine, and for a workhouse which looks like ^' a gentleman's 



254 BBEAD -WINNEBS ABROAD, 

country seat; flowers in the windows and a profusion of 
evergreens en veiling the garden and entrance." Strangely 
enough I can see this fact nowhere in the documents I have 
on the Swansea side of the college question. The tutelary 
genius of this town is Sir Hussey Vivian. It is said that he 
once saved the town from utter ruin and disgrace by asking 
the following question : 

** What about the breakfast and where is it to be held? " 

Swansea had invited the Prince of Wales down to open 
the docks, but until the eleventh hour, had wholly neglected to 
provide a breakfast. The remark of Sir Hussey Vivian 
electrifi^ the people of Swansea, an iron house was erected 
almost in a night, and a thousand people sat down to break- 
fast. It remains to-day (the iron house, I mean) a monu- 
ment to the Baronet's forethought. 

Swansea people have a great deal of local pride. Said an 
observing gentleman: ^^I never met any community of 
people who have a larger faith in their town than the inhab- 
itants of Swansea. Cardiff, they feel, commands a certain 
amount of respect, but Newport they shrug their shoulders 
at, Bristol they consider as good as dead and Milford they 
heartily despise." 

There is a good deal of push and enterprise in Cardiff, 
Swansea and Newport, and they all remind one of American 
cities. The greatest obstacle to their progress is the fact 
that half a dozen capitalists seem to own the three towns — 
Lord Bute and Lord Windsor, of Cardiff ; Sir Hussey Vivian, 
of Swansea; and Lord Tredegar and Sir George EUiot, of 
Newport. In my next letter I shall show the value of the 
industrial forces which these men yield, and, as in the Cleve- 
land district, we shall find these immense mineral riches 
controlled by a few powerful noblemen. 



MEBTHTR TTDVIL, . 255 

LXI. 

Merthyr Tydvil. 

I am writing from the center of the second great coal 
region of the kingdom. This is a dirty, straggling town, 
sprawHng up barren mountains, with belching furnaces, 
black table lands and heaps upon heaps of slag and rubbish 
allround. Little more than a century ago Merthyr was a vil- 
lage dozing in the hollow of the hills; and to this day it 
retains the village type. It is a village stretched a good deal 
each way, with modern patches on the strained ancient 
cloth. It has banks, 'busses and barracks, plate-glass shop 
fronts, rattled-out cabs, narrow, winding, dark and dirty 
streets, and a huge poorhouse, built on a rubbish heap. A 
graduated public-house answers for *'the leading hotel," 
which, at the best, is a comfortless place. In the Blue Books 
of England Merthyr Tydvil is put down as a parhamentary 
borough of nearly 100,000 inhabitants, while the urban 
sanitary district of Merthyr Tydvil had about 52,000 in 1881. 
There never has been public spirit enough in the place to 
obtain a municipal charter; so charterless, characterless, 
gardenless, with its slovenly built hovels, with hardly a bit 
of green for the eyes to rest upon, with volumes of smoke in 
the atmosphere, with slimy pools of black mud in the rainy 
season, and clouds of dust in dry weather, and on all sides 
never-ending hills upon hills of slag, the grimy inhabitants 
of Merthyr Tydvil continue to raise, burn up and ship the 
thirty-six thousand millions of tons of coal in the coal-fields 
beneath them, and heed not the scientists who say that in 
seventeen hundred and twenty years their mines will be 
exhausted. The annual product of this coal-field (including 
the part of it in Monmouthshire) is about 21,000,000 tons, and 
69,158 persons in 1880 were engaged in the mines. Of this 
number 47,081 are employed in Glamorganshire, mostly in 
this immediate vicinity. 



256 BREAD-WINNEMS ABBOAB. 

While the total number of persons engaged in the anthra- 
cite and bituminous coal regions in the United States, accord- 
ing to the census of 1880, was only 164,714, with an aggre- 
gate product of 68,000,000 net tons, the United Kingdom 
employed the same year 484,933 persons, with a product of 
147,000,000 gross tons. 

An inquiry instituted about the year 1860 shows that at 
that period the cost of cutting coal and filling into teams 
varies, according to the district, from lOd. or 20 cents, to 2s. 
6d. or 60 cents, per ton. In 1860 coal cost at bank, including 
royalties and all expenses, but not interest on capital 
expended, about 5s. 6d. per ton ($1.32). The average price 
of Welsh coal at port in 1860 was 7s. lOd. per ton ($2.08). 
The next ten years the wages of coal miners were moderate. 
In 1871, however, a period of prosperity set in, when the 
iron-workers sought an increase of wages, and this was suc- 
ceeded by the coal-miners seeking similar advantages. The 
average earning of a collier at this time was 40s. or $9.60, a 
week. Between 1872-74 the great strike occurred in South 
Wales. About 60,000 of the 65,000 hands then employed in 
the collieries and ironworks of the district struck work from 
December 1, 1872, to February, 1873. The total loss to mas- 
ters and men has been estimated at $10,000,000— over 
$4,000,000 in wages alone. From this time colliers' wages 
decreased, till in 1877 they did not exceed 4s. to 4s. 6d. or 
about $1 a day, for ordinary pitmen, and 5s. to 5s. 3d. ($1.25) 
for hewers. They do not now earn over 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. or 
about $1 a day. Mr. David James, of the Dowlais Iron 
Works, said that unskilled labor was paid about 2s. 5d. (60 
cents) a day. I found some men in the yard working for as 
low as 2s. a day (48 cents) but the average price for common 
laborers would be between 60 and 72 cents per day. The 
statistics of the English Board of Trade show that some 
branches of unskilled labor in this coal district and in Staf- 
fordshire get less than $4 a week, while shifters, bankmen, 
screen-men, jiggers, furnace-men, wagon-wrights and plate 
layers aU average less than $5 per week— if they put in a 



MERTHYE TYDVIL. 257 

full week's work. In the Darlington District, screen-men 
and bank-laborers are reported as working for as low as 
$3.53 a week. Professor Pumpelly's statistics show that m 
anthracite coal-mining in the United States 10,535 persons 
are engaged as miners. 1,244 constitute the administrative 
force, and 47,410, or more than two-thirds of all employed 
are laborers. 

This means that two-thirds of the 70,000 persons employed 
in the South Wales District are 60-and-70-cents-a-day men. 

It means also that two-thirds of the immense army of 484- 
933 persons employed in coal-mining in the United Kingdom, 
or 323,288 are laborers (many of them with large families), 
and that they are paid at the rate of 60 and 70 cents per day. 
Put the income of this class of workers to the same test 
that Professor Pumpelly puts the income of American coal- 
workers, and it would make their average annual income 
reach $180 ? 

When we take into consideration the large proportion of 
this class of labor to skilled labor engaged in coal-mining, 
the average wages paid all classes of labor, that is, the net 
amount recived by the men, will not exceed 3s. 6d. per day, 
or 21s. per week ($5.04). With the facts before us it must 
be conceded that this is an outside estimate. 

Professor Pumpelly has shown (See United States Census 
Bulletin No. 223) that coal miners work about 70 per cent of 
the year — deducting strikes, slack-time, holidays, Sundays, 
etc. The English and Welsh average of lost time would 
fully equal the Americam, as Saint Monday is religiously 
kept in Wales. If the English coal miner worked every 
day of the year, including Sunday, he would receive at 3s. 
6d. (84 cents) per day, $306.60. Deduct Sundays, holidays, 
lost time and strikes, and he would receive $214.80 for the 
year's labor. Professor Pumpelly shows that the average 
yearly net income of all classes of labor in the anthracite 
coal-field in the United States, after deducting all lost time 
and the sums the miner is obliged to expend for powder, oil, 
etc., is $360; and in the bituminous fields $329. This latter 
17 



258 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD, 

includes the cheap colored labor of the South — ^the average 
income in Illinois being, $382 ; in Missouri, $385 ; in Penn- 
sylvania, $337. 

Put to the severe test of exact statistics, the average 
yearly earnings of all labor around cbal mines in the United 
States is $345 ; could exactly the same test be applied, in my 
opinion, it would not exceed $200 in England— estimating it 
at 21s. a week it is less than $215, the American miner re- 
ceiving over 60 per cent more than the English and Welsh 
miners. 

The average price of bituminous coal at the mine (after 
allowing for the difference in the ton) is less in the United 
States than in Wales. 

In the United States for 1880 (See United States Census 
Bulletin No. 273), $1.22; in Wales for 1880 $1.56 per ton. 

The average amount raised in 1880 per man in Wales was 
300 gross tons ; in the United States 431 net tons. Of course 
there are elements entering into the comparison, such as ac- 
cessibility of coal, etc., which make it unfair to assume that 
the increased amount raised was all due to the better meth- 
ods of the American workman. That it is, in part, there 
can be no doubt. 



Lxn. 

DowLAis— An Industrial Graveyard. 

I walked from Merthyr Tydvil to Dowlais, where are 
probably the largest iron works in the world, employing, it 
is said, 9,000 hands— 4,000 under and 5,000 above ground. 
In the journey one passes houses black, white and gray, yel- 
low and mouse-colored, piebald and mottled. In raised 
gardens, looking, as Rowe says, like blacksmith's small coal, 
"fenced "from the road with very intermittent boulders, 
"a few bony cabbage-stalks were shamming to grow." 
Muddy streamlets were cascading from the hill-side. Rails 



DOWLAIS— AN INDUSTRIAL GRAVEYARD, 259 

and dingy railway bridges and flat-topped sloping piles of 
black rubbish ran and rose on all sides. The houses on both 
sides of the narrow, dirty, winding, steep road leading to 
Dowlais are occupied by the miners and laborers. They are 
about on par with those at Coatbridge, Scotland. The floors 
of some are simken lower than the streets, and others are 
entered by steps. The doors were mostly thrown wide open, 
and, as I toiled up the hill, I had excellent opportunity for 
observing how men with large families exist on 2s. 6d. or 60 
cents a day. Without any exaggeration they are little bet- 
ter than pig-sties — ^broken-down, leaky, grimy hovels, with 
everything crowded into one general room. I doubt if in 
that walk of two miles I found one comfortable home, one 
cheerful, tidy cottage. They were universally dilapidated, 
universally gloomy, with no outlook in front better than 
pools of black, shmy mud, and no prospect at the back but 
yawning chasms and dismal mountains of slag. 

As for Dowlais, I can only say shat it has been truthfully 
described as ''a dirty, slovenly, big village," in which "the 
clartier, the cosier " seems to be the motto. The following 
is an accurate description of the utter bewilderment of a 
stranger first turned adrift in the Dowlais works. 

He hears a sighing roar like that of ocean, a hiss of steam, 
a clank of iron, a whir of wheels; sulphurous smoke and a 
spray of grit choke his nostrils ; he sees round keeps and 
angular bastions, with fire leaping from their summit and 
glowing at their base ; a forest of chimney stalks— a jumble 
of mysterious buildings of all shapes and sizes, a maze of 
muddy rails, mounds of coal and lime, piles of metal, tim- 
ber and white brick : an army of men, women and children 
whose diverse garments are turned into a uniform by un- 
varying grime-facings. The slush on the ground is black as 
ink and sticky as tar, and men and giiis are shovehng it up 
by truck loads. Wherever the dazed visitor seeks rest for 
the sole of his foot a tram-horse trots right at him. It is in- 
deed a bewildering nightmare vision— that "lurid Valley of 
the Shadow of Tips." 



260 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

Some of the girls one sees in this part of South Wales are 
very dirty, very bold-eyed, and yet squahdly picturesque, 
with their cheap earrings and their colored kerchiefs. They 
ply their shovels hke navvies, and Hft immense blocks of 
stone and coal. The employment of women in this labor, 
thanks to the Factory act, is growing less in England, and 
in 1880 not over 5,000 were so employed. 

Dr. Eowe, in his little work on the laboring classes of 
England, says, that an enormous quantity of drink is con- 
sumed in Merthyr. 

" What do the miners live on ?" 

** Beer," is the first answer you get. 

When maddened with drink the miners fight long and 
furiously. They turn out into the street, strip to the waist, 
and, not content with blinding one another with their sledge- 
hammer blows, they fasten their teeth in one another's ears 
and shoulders, and worry the flesh hke dogs. 

Some of the miners attend chapel on Sunday, but the 
English Established Church, judging from the following 
description of the parish church of this town, has no hold 
on the Welsh miners : 

It has a dimly illuminated clock, but that is the only 
thing bright about it. It seems to be mouldering away in 
its green churchyard, as the Bibles painted on some of the 
tombstones are scaling off from the green slabs. The flags 
are as damp as the bricks of a cellar. When the clergyman 
goes to the communion-table he is quite exiled from his 
sparse congregation. There were between forty and fifty 
persons present on the morning I attended. The faded or- 
gan seemed to be shivering up in the chilly gallery ; and 
when the thin old clerk in wig and spectacles and long- 
skirted coat took roimd the pewter plate he looked hke the 
last of his race. It was worth while going to church, how- 
ever, if only to hear the Litany read in Welsh. It was a sea- 
like piece of music. 

Returning down the bill to Merthyr Tydvil I passed the 
old Pen y Darran Iron Works, now closed, and rapidly 



BOWLAIS—AN INDUSTRIAL GRAVEYARD. 261 

going into decay. The gate was opened and I entered. 
Within the gray moss-grown walls it looked like a dead 
city. Twenty years ago 3,000 busy men circled round those 
ruined workshops. All was then as smoky, as black, as 
active and as bewildering as Dowlais is now. I wandered 
amid the gray stone blast furnaces, now covered with grass 
and weeds, and through the vast sheds in which lay the 
ponderous machinery thick with rust. Shafting, wheels, 
engines, steam-hammers, anvils, forges, puddling furnaces, 
roUing machines, with rust accumulated, had remained si- 
lent and stationary for twenty years. The solitude of the 
place was only broken by the rushing of a stream cascading 
down the hill and the singing of the birds. In the blast fur- 
naces and ovens through which once roared the flames from 
melting iron, and in the once smoke-enveloped rafters, the 
birds build their nests. Here, too, the ivy clings and the 
wild flowers grow. The ironwork which once encased the 
boiler has crimibled away and the rusty iron shells look 
like a row of dead giants, bursting from their stone coffins. 
Moss-grown was the mortar, and green vegetation was 
peeping forth inside where twenty years ago hissed the 
steam that propelled the now motionless machinery. The 
outfence had collapsed and become gray with moss and 
lichen; the shops had decayed by degrees; abandonment 
and desolation had crept downward toward the valley, and 
nature was slowly asserting herself again. The bell, that 
formerly called the men to work, and the clock remain 
silent in the cupola ; and the weather-indicator on the top 
had lost all its letters but the W. 

Sitting in the midst of this huge industrial graveyard, the 
thought occurred, that possibly the significance of this was 
the fact that iron industry had taken deep root in the far 
West, or that, perhaps, better paid, better fed, better 
housed men, with brighter futures and larger possibilities, 
were doing at this moment the very work that this mill, 
with its cheap labor, located in the centre of the second 
great coal district of England, within a few miles of three 
important ports, had found it unprofitable to do. 



262 BBEAD-WINNEB8 ABROAD. 

Lxni. 

Bristol— Its Mildewy Aspect. 

Bristol strikes the stranger as a singular mixture of en- 
terprise and decay. The merchants are keen, busy men, 
but frankly admit that they have been outstripped through 
the natural migration of industrial centers and not through 
any fault of their own. The poorer dwelling-houses are 
constructed of a gray plaster grown black and green with 
age, while the red tiles have long since been subdued by 
time to dark green and black. The muddy river runs slug- 
gishly through the arches of the ancient bridge, unused fac- 
tories crumble into ruins on the banks, the docks have a 
deserted appearance, idle men lounge around the quay and 
the public squares, and even the statue of William III., in 
Queen's Square, partakes of the general mildewy aspect of 
the whole place, in which an air of departed opulence reigns 
supreme. 

'' A farthing a pound extra duty on sugar when the West 
India slaves were freed, might have saved our vast sugar 
interests," said one of Bristol's prominent citizens to me as 
we drove past some deserted factories;" ^^but alas, our 
people are so obstinately wedded to the free-trade theory 
that Parliament would rather leave the industry to perish 
and suffer its migration to other countries than grant this 
reasonable request." 

It has since been strongly urged that the British Govern- 
ment impose countervailing duties against French, Dutch, 
Belgian, or other foreign refined sugar to check the effect of 
foreign legislation. In vain the Bristol and other British 
refiners urged that the imposition of this country of coun- 
tervailing duties on French or other sugars would not give 
any protection to British refiners, but simply restore the 
equilibrium between the exporters of refined sugar in the 
different countries. 



BRISTOL— ITS MILDEWY ASPECT 263 

We see the necessity of the measure, said Parliament, we 
miderstand that it means ruin to the refiners, but it ''would 
certainly be antagonistic to our commercial policy ; and so 
the factories crumble into dust on the banks of the Avon 
and the Frome, and the once busy operatives stand idly on 
the streets, or seek relief in the Bristol Poorhouse, and 
John Bull pays over $50,000,000 a year to his army of pau- 
pers, and chuckles over maintaining '' our commercial pol- 
icy," forgetting that about one-twentieth of the population 
of the Kingdom are paupers or recipients of charity. 

In Defoe's time (1760) Bristol was "the greatest, the rich- 
est, and the best port of trade in Great Britain, London only 
excepted;" Defoe also says of Bristol: "Whatsoever expor- 
tations they make to any other part of the world, they are 
able to bring the full returns back to their own port, and 
can dispose of them there." I have no doubt of the correct- 
ness of this statement in Defoe's time, but one of the causes 
of the present decline of Bristol is that she has no market 
for return freights. In the eighteenth century, it should be 
borne in mind, the west of England was the seat of the great- 
est commercial and manufacturing industries of the King- 
dom. The population of the southwestern counties was 
about 800,000, while that of the north-western district (in- 
cluding Lancashire and Cheshire) was only 300,000. The 
manufacture of woolen goods had not then removed to the 
great cloth district of Yorkshire, and Wiltshire, Gloucester- 
shire, Somersetshire and Devonshire had for centuries been 
famous for "whites" and "reds," their "azures" and 
"blues." Before steam, and the appHcation of chemical 
science to manufactures, natural advantages wholly deter- 
mined the location of industries. Defoe gives a glowing ac- 
count of this region. The clothing trade of the west was 
created by the adaptation of the district to sheep pasturage. 
On the grassy downs and wide plains of Wiltshire innumer- 
able flocks of sheep yielded fleece. The fleeces of the long- 
sheep of the Cotswold Hills were famous in the fifteenth 
century. The Mendip Hills supported a short-wooled breed, 



264 BEE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

whose wool was as fine as that of Spain. The supply of 
wool was thus at hand for the clothiers who dwelt in the 
valley of the Lower Avon. The waters of that river, with 
its many branches, were especially fitted for fulhng and 
dressing and dyeing cloth. They fabricated the finest 
cloths, says Defoe. Frome, Bradford, Trowbridge, Devizes, 
with many adjacent towns, were the seats of this '^ prodigy 
of a trade." In those days the Wiltshire Bradford was the 
busy Bradford. The town of the same name in the York- 
shire Eiding was comparatively silent or inactive. The 
Bradford on the sweet-flowing Avon was then *' making of 
the finest Spanish cloths," and the port of Bristol was the 
only port that could pretend to enter into competition with 
London. 

The Bristol shopkeepers were also merchants— '* whole- 
sale men," Defoe calls them— and they conducted an inland 
trade through all the western counties and extended their 
traffic through the midland districts even to the Trent. 
Enterprising fellows were the old Bristol merchants, and 
rather than fail they would trade in men. In exchange for 
rum and sugar and tobacco, men were kidnapped and sent 
to foreign plantations. This was as late as the days of 
Charles II., and Bristol was the last to cling to the slave 
trade in the days of George III. But Bristol did a large 
foreign export trade in human flesh centuries before this, 
and in the Conqueror's time young persons of both sexes, 
some of them of great beauty, might daily be seen in the 
market-place tied together with ropes, and thus exposed for 
sale. It took a Bristol mob to abolish slavery. The mob 
fell upon some of the slave merchants and put out their 
eyes. Centuries after, Bristol had reason to remember the 
brutal passion of a mob which to this day has left its scars. 
For three days, during the Reform bill agitation, a mob 
held the town. Houses and public buildings were fired and 
a heap of smouldering ruins was all that remained of 
half of one of the most spacious quadrangles of houses in 
Europe. The heads of men were actually slashed off in the 
streets by the soldiers before the British Riots were stayed. 



BRISTOL— ITS MILDEWY ASPECT, 265 

*^The greatest inconveniences of Bristol," said Defoe, 
**are its situation, its narrow streets, and the narrowness of 
its river; and we might also mention another narrow— that 
is the minds of the generahty of its people." The author 
of ^'Robinson Crusoe" advised the British people to travel 
more, ^^but not out of England, neither; I mean only to 
London"; for there, he informs them, they will see ^* exam- 
ples worth their imitation as well for princely spirit as up- 
right and generous dealings." At that period Bristol was 
cursed with a very exclusive prosperity, and its uneducated 
freemen indulged, when their adventures were prosperoue, 
in vulgar ostentation. From this port Sebastian Cabot set 
sail in 1497, and discovered Newfoundland. Two centuries 
later Bristol was the great emporium for American produce, 
and Dampier sailed from the Avon to come back rich with 
Spanish prizes. A century and a half later the Great West- 
ern steamed down past the narrow rocks of St. Vincent on 
her first voyage to New York. When at Bradford, a few 
weeks ago, I was introduced to an old gentleman named 
Ambler, who crossed in that steamer, and he was anxious to 
know of the changes in New York since then. Says Knight : 
''The difference between the Bristol of Cabot and the Bris- 
tol of Dampier is not greater than the difference between 
the Bristol of William III. and the Bristol of Queen Victo- 
ria." The Avon is now far too narrow and too tortuous for 
the mighty vessels that carry the world's commerce. The 
old commerce of wool and woolen manufactures, of which 
Bristol was the seat is gone. Cardiff and Swansea and New- 
port, I have shown in previous letters, are all struggling for 
the South Wales coal and iron trade. Instead of the great 
cotton and woolen districts, with their milHon or more op- 
eratives, and the Lancashire coal district, with its annual 
product of twenty million tons, to support it, as the port of 
Liverpool has, Bristol has now nothing but an agricultural 
country at the back of it. The great sugar industry, which 
formerly enabled the refiners to live in almost regal splendor, 
and made their banquets and entertainments celebrated 
over the whole Kingdom, has died out. 



266 BBEAB-WINNEBS ABROAD. 

LXIV. 

Bristol— Loss of the Sugar Trade. 

At the beginning of the present century Bristol had 
changed in rank from the second to the sixth great city of 
Great Britain. At that time the combined population of 
Manchester and Salford was only 95,000; Liverpool, now 
nearly three times as large as Bristol, only exceeded it in 
population by 20,000; and Birmingham, now twice as large 
by 10,000. The great metropolis of Scotland, Glasgow, with 
over half a million population, then had but 77, 000. Notting- 
ham and Bradford, both equal in importance and population 
to Bristol, then were small towns of 29,000 and 13,000 in- 
habitants, respectively. Leeds and Sheffield had less popu- 
lation than Bristol ; to-day they each exceed the great west- 
ern port by 100,000 souls. 

The trade of Bristol with the United States is growing less 
and less. The value of the goods it sends in ten years would 
not exceed the value of the exports of Bradford for three 
months. Chemicals form the principal articles of export. 
Verily the vicissitudes of trade are like the vicissitudes of in- 
vention, discovery and genius. A ^'Bristol man born " first 
sets foot on Newfoundland and a Bristol steamer first crosses 
the Atlantic. To-day the trade of Bristol with America is 
dying out. Bristol was once famous for casting iron and 
brass pots, and brought to perfection ^^ a new way of cast- 
ing iron-bellied pots in sand only." It takes no leading part 
in the iron trade now. Indeed, the inventor himself left 
the town and founded a vast factory at Coalbrookdale in 
Shropshire, which is to-day famous for its iron ware. In 
pottery, Bristol shared the same fate. At one time a Bristol 
potter was powerful enough to persuade his Majesty George 
III. to delay the prorogation of Parliametit in order that his 
appeal for the extension of his patent might have effect. 



BBISTOL—LOSS OF THE SUGAR TRADE. 267 

But he got tired of Bristol and sold his patents to a company 
of Staffordshire potters. To-day old Bristol china is more 
eagerly sought after than any other porcelain, and within 
the last two years three vases were exhibited at the Burling- 
ton Fine Arts Club, and valued at over $5,000. Other pieces 
have reahzed thrice the value of their weight in gold. Bris- 
tol had one of the most remarkable poets of the age, Chat- 
terton, but he was neglected and left to a suicide's fate in a 
London garret, while to-day the Bristol people honor him 
with costly *' cabinet editions" and monuments. Still Bris- 
tol's ^' ample page" is ^' rich with the spoils of time." Kings 
and queens have tarried there. It boasts, says Dr. Doran, 
of natives of the greatest distinction in commerce, Htera- 
ture and other ennobling pursuits ; and it is not only famous 
for its milk, but for its milk -woman poetess, Anne Yearsley, 
poetess, dramatist, novel-writer, whom Hannah Moore up- 
held for a time; but she ultimately set her heel upon " Lac- 
tilla," with as much stamp in it as her gentle Christianity 
would allow. The two women were not wider apart than 
the Bristol bards, Cottle and Southey ; but Bristol once ad- 
mired Cottle as much as it did Anne Yearsley. 

Pepys, who was in Bristol in 1668, with wife and ^ ' our 
girl Deb," said of the city: *' It 's in every respect another 
London." Pepys had a good word to say for everything in 
Bristol except the sermon which he heard in the great 
church — '^a vain, pragmatical fellow preached a ridiculous, 
affected sermon, and made me angry, and some gentlemen 
that sat near me." And in the evening "the same idle fel- 
low preached, and I slept most of the sermon." Dr. Doran, 
when he visited Bristol with the British Association, brings 
to mind the fact that there was a time when the Bristol 
Venuses were not held in much estimation for their personal 
qualities. "This saucy legend," says the Doctor, "goes so 
far as to assert that the Bristol bride-market was so slack of 
profitable business that a stimulus was given to it by offer- 
ing the freedom of the city to any one who would venture 
to take to wife a Bristol maid or widow." Of course this 



268 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD: 

was a caluminous satire. Hume, the historian, tried in vain 
to like learning to be a mercantile clerk, perched on a high 
stool at Bristol. But he disliked the place as well as his ap- 
prenticeship, which he soon abandoned. In his history, un- 
der the date 1660, he gives an account of the mock triumphal 
entry into Bristol of the fanatic Quaker, Nay lor, who bore 
a certain resemblance to the portrait given as that of Jesus : 
**He entered Bristol mounted on a horse. I suppose," 
Hume adds, sarcastically, ^'from the difficulty in that place 
of finding an ass." Horace Walpole probably gives, in 1766, 
the most unfavorable judgment on Bristol: *'I did go to 
Bristol, the dirtiest gnat shop I ever saw, with so foul a river 
that had I seen the least appearance of cleanliness, I should 
have concluded they washed all their linen in it, as they do 
in Paris. Going into the town I was struck by a large 
Gothic building, coal black, and striped with white. I took 
it for the devil's cathedral. When I came nearer I found it 
was an uniform castle, lately built, and serving for stables 
and offices to a smart false Gothic house on the other side of 
the road." 

The municipal government is one of the most unique in 
England, and the charters are ancient and numerous, dating 
from the twelfth century. The Mayor is to this day a great 
dignitary, and in the palmy days of Bristol, before the Mu- 
nicipal Reform act, guests were sumptuously entertained at 
the city's expense. The impecunious Eichard H. used to 
borrow money of the city of Bristol, and in return for it he 
would honor the city by a visit. When Henry VI. visited 
the city the Mayor actually broke open the city coffers by 
force to *^ entertain" the monarch. The parsimonious Henry 
VII. visited the place in 1485 amid great pageantry, and 
liked it so well that he came again five years later, and 
made every man worth £20 pay him five per cent on his 
property because the Bristol wives were so finely dressed. 
This did not cool the loyalty of the city, and since then in- 
numerable crowned heads have gone thither; indeed, the 
wife of James I. graciously remarked to the worshipful 



COVENTRY— MEM0BIE8 OF THE OLD TOWN, 269 

Mayor: **Nay, I could not feel myself to be Queen till I 
came to Bristol." 

I cannot close this rather desultory letter without a word 
for the charitable societies. I suppose in no city of its size 
in the world are there so many admirable charities, and 
** Bristol the benevolent" is a fitting title for this ancient 
and loyal old city; declining industrially, it must be ad- 
mitted, but nevertheless rich in antiquity, and with a rare 
old history worth the most careful study. 



LXV. 

Coventry— Memories of the Old Town. 

That story about Lady Godiva's ride never had any foun- 
dation in fact, although it is generally believed here. Mat- 
thews of Westminister, who did not flourish till 250 years 
after the alleged occurrence is said to have taken place, was 
the first to give currency to this tradition. The more ancient 
authors, though they speak of Leofric's foundation at Cov- 
entry, and Godiva's concurrence and benefactions to it, in 
no way allude to the affair. InguKus, the author of the 
Saxon Chronicles Ordericus Vitalis, Henry of Huntingdon, 
Simon Dunelmensis, Maieros, Florence of Worcester, John 
Abbas de Brugo, and William of Malmsbury, the latter par- 
ticularly treating of the monastery at Coventry, had a fair 
opportunity of recording a circumstance so singular. The 
good people of Coventry declare it must have occurred 
because the transaction was represented in the window of 
Trinity Church. They forget, however, that the window 
was not made till Richard II. 's time, and was probably 
grounded on the testimony of Matthew of Westminster or 
Brompton, who both lived before Richard II. The proces- 
sion or calvacade which for some centuries annually com- 



270 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

memorated the event, stands upon no better ground and 
originated in the licentious reign of Charles II. And yet, 
until quite recently, this show, the main attraction of which 
was a handsome woman of Coventry, not nude in accordance 
with the tradition, but dressed in flesh-colored tights, was 
graced by the dignified worshipful Mayor of Coventry, the 
High Constable, the wool-combers, with Bishop Blaze and a 
Bible,. St. George on Horseback, sundry brass bands, and a 
good deal of other tomfoolery. 

Though WiUiam of Malmsbury omits the story, he does 
tell us of the Earls of Mercid, who endowed the old Priory 
of Coventry *' with such profusion of gold and silver that the 
walls of the church seem too confined to contain the treasure, 
which strikes all beholders with astonishment, no less than 
50 marks of silver being scraped off one single beam." But 
this soon attracted the greed of the neighboring bishops, and 
Eobert de Limsey, bishop of Litchfield, left his own see and 
came to this golden land of Pactolus, ^^ that he might filch 
from the churches, treasures enough to fill the king's coffers, 
deceive the Pope, and gratify the avarice of the court of 
Eome." 

The history of Coventry is full of interest aside from its 
being the emporium of the ribbon trade. No local history, 
however, is obtainable, as it does not even boast a guide 
book. It took an active part in the Wars of the Eoses and 
in the war against Charles I. For its friendship to Henry 

VI. Edward IV. took the sword from the Mayor and dis- 
franchised the city. But 500 marks so softened Edward's 
heart that he gave Coventry back its charter, held St. 
George's feast there, and stood godfather for the Mayor's 
child. Charles II. was more relentless, and because Coven- 
try refused to admit his royal father he had all the walls 
battered down and left nothing but the gates standing. Two 
Parliaments were held herein Henry VI. 's time; Parlia 
mentiim indoctorum and Parliamentum didbolicus. Henry 

VII. was entertained with great joy here and presented with 
a gold cup, and the same honor was conferred on James I. 



COVENTRY— MEMOBIES OF THE OLD TOWN. 271 

Other monarchs have tarried at Coventry, and no doubt 
have been loyally entertained. 

Devoe said of Coventry: *^It drives a great trade; the 
manufacture of Tammies is their chief employ, and the next 
to that weaving of ribbands of the meanest kind, chiefly 
black." He was not much impressed with the place; ^Hhe 
buildings are old, and in some places much decag^ed; the 
timber-built houses project forward into the street toward 
one another, insomuch that in the narrow streets they almost 
touch at the top." Indeed, the textile art can be traced to 
a very remote period, a weaver having filled the office of 
Mayor in 1525. The ribbon trade was not introduced into 
Coventry till a century and a half ago, mainlj^ through the 
immigration of French refugees, who had been compelled to 
leave their country in great numbers in consequence oi the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Since 1861 the silk indus- 
try has been decHningin England, as shwn in another letter. 

During the same period it is a significant fact that under a 
judicious protection the silk industry of the United States 
has grown from a product of only $6,589,171 in 1860, and 
5,360 hands employed, to a product in 1880 of $41,033,045, and 
31,337 persons employed. In number employed the United 
States nearly equals Great Britain, though the origin of 
the trade in England dates from Lombe's famous silk 
mill at Derby, completed in 1717, and that of America's 
industry hardly dates before the tariff of 1860, as the 
census of 1850 shows that only 857 persons were engaged 
in the industry, and but little over a miUion dollars' 
worth of goods were produced. It is an interesting fact that 
in 1860 the importation of silk manufactures into the United 
States amounted to $32,961,120 and that twenty years later 
(1880), after the successful introduction of silk manufacture, 
the imports only amounted to $32,188,690, while on the other 
hand the value of the product of American silk factories has 
increased $34,000,000. The population of the country has 
increased 20,000,000, and its wealth proportionately, and the 
importation of the class of goods has remained practically 



272 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 



the same, the larger proportion being now supplied by home 
manufacture, 

^^ Oh, but you have increased the price to the consumer," 
says the British Free-Trader; and his echo in the United 
States proclaims the same absurdity. 

If you care to listen to facts, I reply, we have done nothing 
of the kind. While the Untted States pays its operatives, 
in addition to receiving less work from them, 100 per cent 
more than the same class of work people receive in England, 
over 200 per cent more than in France, over 300 per cent 
more than in Italy, and a still greater percentage more than 
is paid in Germany, the prices of silk goods in the United 
States have declined since the manuf acture.has been success- 
fully estabHshed there, as follows : 



Goods. 



Machine twist 

Fine silks and scarfs . . . 
Serges and twilled silks 

Handkerchiefs 

Ribbons 

Laces . o 

Dress goods 



Decline in Prices in the 
Period 1865 to 1883. 



56 
55 
62 
62 
54 
50 
30 to 35 



per cent. 



In seventeen years, can the consumer expect a greater 
reduction in the price than this? If all the silk manufactur- 
ing had been left to European countries, is any sane man 
prepared to say there would have been the same reduction 
in the cost, and that the addition of 30,000 industrious, 
skilled, well paid, well fed, well housed and ingenious oper- 
atives to the world's aggregate has had nothing to do with 
cheapening the production of silks? 

I have already shown that the silk industry, owing to the 
keener competition of the Continent, is steadily declining in 
England. It will next be interesting to inquire into the con- 
dition of the army of 40,000 persons, who, reduced to starva- 
tion wages, stiU try to eke out a miserable existence in 



COVENTRY— SAD STORIES FROM REAL LIFE. 273 

England in this pursuit. It is estimated that from eighteen 
to twenty thousand of these operatives Hve in this city and 
the surrounding rural parishes. A few weeks prior to my 
visit here one of the metropolitan newspapers of England 
pubhshed the following in its news columns under the head- 
ing of '' Wages Agitation in Coventry." 

'^The agitation for increased wages among the silk and 
ribbon weavers is rapidly spreading. Another meeting of 
the men was held on Saturday, convened by the ^' hands" of 
one of the largest manufacturers in the city, but attended 
by many others, ^' to take into consideration the low prices 
now paid, and to arrange what steps can be taken for the 
benefit of the trade." It was stated that, notwithstanding 
the ^'starvation prices" paid a few months ago, there had in 
some instances been a further reduction of 20 per cent in the 
wages of the weavers, who for making one class of goods 
known as 5i-inch ''mock grograins" could now only earn 
about 6s. 4d. ($1.56) per week. It was decided to appoint a 
deputation to wait upon the manufacturers referred to above 
with a revised Hst of prices, and to confer with a general 
committee recently appointed. Considerable sympathy is 
shown toward the weavers, many of whom are in the most 
abject poverty, and some of the manufacturers who are not 
concerned in the present agitation have evinced a desire to 
help them. 

The end of the above agitation, as I am now informed, was 
that the men went back at the old rates ; that is, they pre- 
vented a further reduction. 



LXVI. 

Coventry.— Sad Stories from Real Life. 

I HAVE spent a couple of days in Coventry, and in that 
time have walked all over the city, hiring a weaver, who 
18 



274 BBEAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

was glad to accompany me for a few shillings a day through 
the streets, and to show me where the working classes lived. 
The streets are narrow, and the houses very old and rapidly 
decaying, especially in the central part of the city. Coven- 
try being a clean dry city, and the business of weaving 
being cleaner than that of coal-mining and iron manufacture, 
and there being no large manufactories as one finds in the 
woollen and cotton districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire, 
the general aspect is cleaner though not less cheerless, when 
you enter the cottages of the operatives. Most of them 
were very destitute of furniture, and a couple of looms oc- 
cupied nearly all the space in the two rooms. The men 
were pale and thin, and want made the cheek-bones of the 
women stand out, and their eyes were set in red rings of 
inflammation. Meat was something they hardly ever tasted , 
and yet, as one poor fellow remarked, ^' You want a bit o' 
meat to keep up your strength for weaving ; it's hard work, 
though it mayn't look it." 

Tea and bread and butter are what they live on. Said one 
woman, looking affectionately at her pale, emaciated hus- 
band: ^'Poor fellow, he never even gets 'alf a pint o' beer." 
If some of the fine people who wear rich velvets, handsome 
ribbons and costly scarfs, could see the worn looms, the 
half -starved weavers, the spare hand that throws the shut- 
tle, the bare room, and the miserable scramble here where 
it is woven for an insufficient quantity of food, I am think- 
ing their faces might tingle with shame. One English writer 
has recently very aptly said that the contrast between the 
velvet of a pall and the corpse it covers is not less striking 
than that between a pinched silk-weaver seated at his loom 
and the rich fabric growing so slowly, in spite of the swift- 
ness of his shuttle, beneath his fingers. Indeed, in the whole 
industry as carried on at Coventry, and I might add in 
other parts of England (excepting in such immense estab- 
lishments as the Listers', described in the Bradford letter) 
poverty and luxury stare strangely into each other's eyes ; 
you cannot help fancying that the beautiful product, vicari- 



C0VENTBT—8AD STORIES FROM REAL LIFE. 275 

ously for its future wearers, must feel half ashamed. Here 
is a fair description of the average weaver's rooms: Both 
back and front are lighted by weaver's casements, running 
almost the whole width of the house. Inside the front 
window stand a few plants in pots, cut down for the winter 
The boarded floors are bare. The front room, which is the 
living room, is furnished with the wife's loom, a bedstead, a 
chair or two, some old prints and crockery hangiag on the 
walls, and a Httle round table by the fire. The husband's 
loom and a few miscellaneous articles furnish the back room. 
He is a spare man, poorly clad, and, as his face shows, 
poorly fed, very intelligent, with a good forehead, genial 
eyes and a pleasant smile. Here is his story : 

^^ Have been all my life a weaver ; am now sixty -six years 
old. I began when I was fourteen ; served seven years' ap- 
prenticeship. It's next door to starvation. Our trade is 
dying out, and a good job, too. I told my master once that 
there'd soon be an end to us, and a good thing too. ' Why 
so?' says he. * Why, sir,' says I, ^ who'd apprentice his son 
to learn starvation ? Would you Like to have your boy 
taught such a fine trade as that ?' Of course, he couldn't 
say he would, but he says : ' You may thank your fine free 
trade for it all. What's the good of cheap bread to you if 
you've got no money to buy it with ?' " 

These men can make at most about 10s. ($2.40) a week, 
and rent is from 2s. 6d. (60 cents) to 3s. (72 cents) a week. 
Before giving my own experience in the Coventry district, I 
wish to quote a description of a silk-weaver's family by the 
late Dr. Eowe, an English authority, who did much in show- 
ing how the work-people live in England under free trade 
and cheapness: 

The door is opened by a woman of from five to eight 
and twenty. She has not a bad figure, and perhaps when 
she was a child had a tolerably pretty face. Want is clearly 
stamped on her face. The room holds her loom and her 
husband's, a bedstead (on the unmade bed of which he a 
baby and a cat) a table, two or three chairs, a few clothes 



276 BEE AD' WINN EBS ABROAD, 

hung upon a string to dry— and very little else inanimate. 
The eldest of five chiMren, horn in six years, has trotted oflE 
to school in dread of the School Board officers. Baby's pre- 
decessor died ' ' in fits. " Two pleasant-faced but sadly pasty- 
faced toddlers, wonderfully clean and neat, considering their 
parents' circumstances, stare at the stranger with big eyes 
expanded to the utmost. When a mite is offered to the 
mites, and they are asked if they know how to spend it, the 
mother answers for them gratefully yet bitterly, ^' It will 
buy them something to eat." 

Hear the woman's story : 

'^Yes, I work," she says, *'when I've time — when I've 
done up the place and dressed the children, or when they're 
abed. But it isn't much I can do with a baby, and them 
two so little. Perhaps I may earn 8id. (17 cents) a day, 
sometimes. Besides waiting at the master's, we lose about 
a quarter of our time doing work for which we get no pay. 
It will take me two hours and a half to get this ready," she 
explains as she fingers the blue, flossy threads stretching 
along her loom. 

The husband then comes forward in his shirt-sleeves. He 
is a stubbly -bearded, prematurely aged man, of about three 
or four and thirty, with stooping shoulders, hollow cheeks 
and deeply sunken eyes. He is civil and pleasant to speak 
to, but not so hopelessly resigned to his lot as the older men. 

Hear the husband's story: 

*' Yes, they're nice little 'uns," he says, ^^and it's hard for 
a man to see his children dragged up this fashion and not 
to be able to better it. Working twelve to thirteen hours, 
perhaps, I may make 2s. 6d. (60 cents) a day. If you 
were to come in at 9 to-night you would find me at work. 
I don't believe I made more than £20 ($96) last year. Live, 
sir ? We don't live — only just muddle to keep off dying. 
When people talk to me about the price of meat, I often say 
that it wouldn't matter to me if there wasn't no meat at all. 
We never get none— 'cept, perhaps, now and then half-a- 
pound of bullock's liver between the six of us." 



I 



STARVATION WAGES IN COVENTRY. 277 

But then England expends fifty millions annually ^^for 
our commercial policy " on its paupers, and is ever ready 
to ^' assist " its industrial poor. 

Hear the husband's pathetic story on this point : 

*' Well, yes, sir, I'll own I was once driven to apply to the 
parish, and I was blackguarded as if I'd robbed a church. 
It was to bury the poor child. How was I to raise £2 ($10) ? 
So I went to the parish. I happened to go in a coat that a 
lady gave me— there it hangs. If she hadn't given it to me I 
shouldn't have had a coat at all ; and because I'd a coat on 
they said that such a gentleman as me ought to be ashamed 
of himself to come begging. They needn't have told me so. 
I was ashamed enough to have to ask any one's help to bury 
my poor httle'un. There was some talk of putting me to 
stone-breaking. Why, stived up here aU day as I am, I 
could scarce have lifted the hammer, and my hands wouldn't 
have been much good for weaving afterwards. Says one of 
'em: 'We've all our troubles to bear, my man.' Thinks 
I to myself, ' Perhaps you may, but troubles are a deal 
easier to bear when yx)u've good food and fires and clothes, 
and no likelihood of losing of 'em. Whatever sorrows 
you've had, you've never had the sorrow of a hungry belly, 
and half-a-dozen more hungry bellies round you that belong 
to ye.'" 

Hundreds of similar cases to the above can be found in 
Conventry and the surrounding neighborhood. 



Lxvn. 

Starvation Wages in Coventry. 

I called at the house of one of the best weavers in Con- 
ventry, on King William street, in what is called '^Ill- 
fields." He had several looms at the top of his house, and 
used steam power. In the palmy days of the ribbon and 



278 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

silk trade lie used to make £15 a week, where now he could 
not make over £2 ($10) and did not make more then £1 
($5). He told me that half the weavers of Coventry were 
actually starving. 

** There is my son," said he, pointing to the likeness of a 
handsome-looking young fellow on the mantel ; ^4ook at 
him, sir, as fine a boy as ever lived, sober, industrious ; and 
what do you think he earns at weaving? Why, ten or 
twelve shillings a week (less than $3), and he has a wife and 
child to maintain. A real intelligent lad, sir ; I wish you 
could see him." 

*' There is much distress in Conventry," said I. 

** Why, I tell you half the weavers are starving," replied 
the weaver; '* some of the other trades have helped them a 
bit by subscriptions." 

I then read to this man the item quoted in my last letter 
on the wages agitation at Coventry and the actual amount 
of earnings. He said it was in the main correct, only did 
not half tell the story of want and misery, which had been 
brought upon this once thrifty community through admit- 
ting the cheap competition of countries the climate of 
which enabled the people to live on less than English 
operatives could exist on. ^'Why," said one weaver, *^the 
people that wear ribbons and silks and carry watches (the 
staples of Coventry) can afford to pay for them. We are 
agitating the subject here and have Fair Trade meetings, 
and some of the members of Parliament who are not led 
away with the free-trade theory, hope to be able to do some- 
thing for us." 

The history of the ribbon trade forms an interesting study 
in industrial history. A change of fashion in 1812 suddenly 
occasioned an extraordinary demand for ribbons with large 
pearl edges, and a golden age dawned on the distressed 
weaver at Coventry. Some old weavers will to-day tell you 
of the "big pearl time." Strangely enough, at that time the 
watch trade at Coventry was suffering great depression, 
and it is said that the following advertisement was printed : 



STARVATION WAGES IN COVENTRY, 



279 



Wanted, 
Fifty Distressed Watch-Makers 

TO 

Shell peas for the 
Weavers. 

Wages at this time rose to an unprecedented height, and 
ended in disagreements between master and man, until 
finally the temporary demand fell off. Several ''lists" 
were established and were subsequently broken by strikes. 
In 1835 the last list ever established was promulgated, and 
continued to form the acknowledged basis of prices in the 
plain engine-weaving till the collapse of the trade in 1860. . 

Timmins, in his history of the Coventry ribbon trade, 
brings out the fact that among the many vicissitudes which 
the ribbon trade has undergone during the last few years 
few are more remarkable than those consequent on the dis- 
covery of the aniline dyes. Owing to the great beauty and 
variety of- the colors produced by these dyes, perfectly plain 
ribbons have almost completely superseded the old elabor- 
ately figured fabrics in popular estimation. Now that silk 
can be dyed in colors surpassing the old tints not only in 
brilliancy but in permanence, and a perfectly plain ribbon 
can be woven in which the most practised eye can detect no 
imperfe(3tion, there exists no longer any practical hindrance 
to the production of unfigured fabrics, for which modern 
taste has created an abundant demand. 

The prejudice in this vicinity against the factory system 
still exists in the minds of the weavers, though I was told it 
was dying out. Indeed so far as my observations went, I 
think those employed in the factories were better off than 
those working at home in the cottages. At first the worst 
classes of weavers are said to have found their way into the 
factories. But these have been eliminated, and they now 
employ what may be termed the middle classes of weavers. 
Then the highest and the lowest are now to be found among 
the out-door operatives. In the best of times the wages of 



280 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

females in the factories range from 7s. to 10s., or on the 
average not over $2 a week. 

Next to the ribbon trade Coventry is celebrated for 
watches, and probably about 2,500 persons are engaged in 
this occupation. I had a long conversation with a wa.tch- 
maker who was sixty-four years of age, had served his 
regular apprenticeship to the business and actually worked 
at it for half a century. He told me that he now received 
6s. ($1.44) for the same amount of work that he formerly 
was paid 26s. (6.24) for ; that under protection he could earn 
£6 ($30), but now he was lucky to make 30s. (7.50) -a week. 
^^But, sir," said the aged and bent watch-maker, ^'the 
Fair Traders are agitating things, and a great feeling is 
growing. It is all owing to the cheap labor abroad, and I 
assure you I could show you my expenses wheM I earned £6 
a week. We get nothing now cheaper than then. Good 
meat, sir, is a shilHng a pound (24 cents), and all provisions 
are very dear. I can hardly live on 30s. a week." The old 
man pointed affectionately to the placard in his window 
announcing the meeting of the * ' Fair Trade Club " on Friday 
night, and asked me to stay and attend. He said : '^ Some 
of our most prominent men are interesting themselves in 
this matter." 

I made inquiry about the bicycle trade of Coventry, of 
which so much has been recently said. I found it was not 
very extensive. I met several bicycle makers loafing in the 
square. They told me they earned from £1 to 24s. a week, 
but that they were generally out of work about three 
months in the year. Altogether the present condition of 
the industrial classes in Coventry is far from satisfactory. 
There is a great deal of poverty and suffering. 



NORWICH-DECLINE OF THE SILK INDUSTRY. 281 

Lxvin. 

Norwich— Decline of the Silk Industry. 

Few who have not studied the growth and migration of 
industry in Eiu'ope appreciate the important part that the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 played in starting 
British manufacturing. From the Huguenots England 
learned the arts, trades and perfectionment of thread and 
lace, woolen weaving and dyeing, cambric making, ship- 
building, button making, pottery manufacture, the construc- 
tion and use of wind -mills, gardening, hop-growing— 

Hops, reformation, bays and beer 
Came into England all in a year. 

It is silk and its manufacture that I propose to deal with 
in this letter, and though I have visited the ten towns in 
which the manufacture is carried on, I have dated my letter 
from Norwich, where the refugees first estabhshed the silk 
manufacture in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Defoe, trav- 
eling in the vicinity of of Norwich in 1742, says: ** An emi- 
nent weaver of Norwich gave me a scheme of their trade 
on this occasion by which, calculating from the number of 
looms at that time employed in the city of Norwich only, he 
made it appear very plain that there were 120,000 people 
busy in the woolen and silk manufacture of that city only ; 
not that the people all lived in the city— though Norwich is 
very large and populous— but they were employed for spin- 
ning the yarn used for such goods as were aU made in that 
city." 

On the introduction of steam power, the silk industry 
along with the wool industry migrated to Lancashire and 
Yorkshire and to Macclesfield and Coventry. Though Nor- 
wich is of little importance as a silk center to-day it is only 
fair that my story of the English silk industry shoxild begin 



282 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD 

in this ancient, rare, rich, beautiful, and interesting place. 
i;he quaint and antique streets and houses of this pictur- 
esque city were once filled with industrious silk weavers 
and spinners, who plied their avocation in their houses be- 
fore the tall chimneys and clattering machinery of Eng- 
land's innumerable Coketowns were thought of. The Eo- 
mans, the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans all came to 
Norwich in their turn, but it has been truly said there was 
one race that came hither— the Dutch — which added most 
to the town's wealth. For they came not with slings nor 
with stones; nor argued inarmed phalanxes, nor settled a 
question with battle-axes, nor made it clearer by incendiar- 
ism, nor crushed men into earth, and boasted of all being at 
peace. They brought rich gifts with them — industry and 
ingenuity, taste and invention, conception and execution. 
They came with their silks and threads and worsteds and 
implements, and their camlets and bombazines were manu- 
factured to charm East Anglia, enrich the Dutch, and give 
impulse to the Norfolk people to do the like. 

The centers of the silk industry in England are at the 
present time Congleton on the Dane, in the neighborhood of 
the wild moorland country which borders Derbyshire and 
Staffordshire; Macclesfield, a somewhat unattractive town 
in North Staffordshire; Leek, a small town near Maccles- 
field ; Coventry, with its two famous spires, the center of 
the ribbon trade ; the rich old town of Derby where may be 
seen to-day the first silk mill built in England; London, 
where in 1629 the sOk throwsters of Spitalfields formed an 
association; Manchester, once employing 20,000 looms; Not- 
tingham, noted for its lace, hosiery, and gloves, and the 
now almost deserted Middle ton, formerly employing 5,000 
operatives in silk-weaving, and Bradford, with Listers, im- 
mense silk mills, one of the most successful establishments 
in the world. 

The manufacture of silk was introduced in 1752 into Con- 
gleton by John Clayton ; into Coventry the beginning of the 
eighteenth century ; in Dei/by by John Lombe in 1717, and I 



NORWICH— DECLINE OE TEE SILK INDUSTRY. 283 

have sat in a clean little public house in the vicinity of the 
*'01d Silk Mill" on the Derwent, and listened to a white- 
haired weaver teU the story of John Lombe's Hfe and of his 
tragic end at the hands of an emissary of the Itahan manu 
facturers, whose secrets he had obtained. The trade came 
to Macclesfield about the middle of the seventeenth century, 
and from thence to Leek, where there are twisters' ^' wheel- 
heads" to be seen one hundred years old. In London the 
industry was founded about the same time as in Norwich. 
In Manchester and Middleton it began about seventy years 
ago, and in Nottingham and Bradford it was small at the 
beginning of the present century. 

Congleton is famous for its broad silks, handkerchiefs and 
velvets; Coventry, at the present time, for its plain and 
fancy ribbons; Derby, formerly for hosiery, but now 
for elastic heels and surgical stockings and bandages; 
Leek, for sewing silks and twist, fringes and embroidery, 
silks of all kinds, buttons, bindings, etc. ; London, umbrel- 
las, silk stockings, parasols, velvets, damasks, and trim- 
mings; Macclesfield, ladies' ties, carcenets, plain and figured 
piece goods; Manchester, figured goods; Middleton, black 
gros grains; Nottingham, lace, hosiery and gloves; and 
Bradford, velvets and spun silk goods of all descriptions. 

Before the suicidal poKcy of free trade ruined the British 
silk industry it flourished in all these centers. In Congle- 
ton, twenty-five years ago, 5,186 operatives were employed, 
and to-day only 1,530; in Coventry 40,600 people were de- 
pendent on this industry, to-day not more than quarter of 
the number are engaged in the ribbon trade. In Derby 
6,650 were engaged twenty-five years ago, to-day only 2,400. 
In the most prosperous time of the industry in London 60,- 
000 were employed, to-day only 4,000. Between 1841 and 
1851 over 15,000 hands were employed in this industry in 
Macclesfield, to-day much less than this number. The 5,000 
employed in Middleton in 1850 have decreased to about 400 
in 1884. 

Basle and St. Etienne send their goods free of duty into 



284 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

the English home market and compete with Coventry. 
Germany and St. Chamond send in their braids and displace 
those of Leek. Roubaix, Lyons, Crefeld, and Milan have 
exterminated the once flourishing industry of Spitalfields. 
Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France are pushing the 
Macclesfield goods out of the home market. ^ Germans are 
underselling the Middleton district in galloons, and Calais 
undersells Nottingham in lace and hosiery. The effects of 
the French treaty, which Mr. Cobden negotiated in 1860, 
were most disastrous. From that moment the industry be- 
gan to decay. I ask any fair-minded free-trader to reply to 
the facts which I give below and which cannot be contra- 
dicted. 

At Congleton the ribbon trade left the town. Throwing 
trade gradually declined, particularly in ItaUan silks. In 
Coventry it ruined the trade. In Derby it greatly reduced 
silk throwing. In Leek it injured the serge trade. In Lon- 
don it brought ruin to many. A gradual reduction of Mac- 
clesfield production followed its enaction, while it destroyed 
the trade of Middleton, and in Manchester the silk trade 
practically died out. Nottingham was alone the exception 
with regard to the bad effect on the silk trade of the French 
treaty of 1860. It may even have derived a slight benefit 
from it, because the products are of such a nature as to 
command a demand for them abroad. Never was a more 
wanton and cruel blow aimed at a flourishing industry. In 
1857, a few years prior to the ratiflcation of the treaty, the 
import of raw silk into England aggregated 12,077,931 
pounds. Since then it has dwindled year by year, as for- 
eign manufactured goods have forced their way, free of 
duty, into the home market, until the last six years it has 
hardly averaged 3,000,000 pounds per annum — in 1883 being 
3,178,593 pounds, and in 1881 sinking to 2, 904, 580. On the 
other hand, the imports of manufactured goods have gradu- 
ally increased in value from about $10,000,000 in 1857 to 
$102,620,000 in 1883. A duty of 15 or 25 per cent on this 
luxury would have held this important industry for Eng- 






MACCLESFIELD— CAUSE OF THE DECLINE. 285 

land. The untold misery endured by those thrown out of 
work through free trade may be read in these figures. In 
1861 the census gives 117,989 as the number of hands em- 
ployed in the United Kingdom in the silk industry; in 1881 
the same source gives only 63,577. 



LXIX. 

Macclesfield.— Cause of the Decline. 

A TABULAR statement was recently prepared for the use 
of Parliament in which one of the questions addressed to 
the several silk centers of the kingdom was, '^ Causes which 
have led to the decline of the silk trade?-' To which each 
town replied as follows : 

Congleton— Withdrawal of protection. 

Coventry — Free imports of French and German goods, 
combined with high duties imposed by other countries on 
our goods. 

Derby — ^Withdrawal of protection. 

Leek— Sewing-silk trade maintained itself. 

London — Withdrawal of protection. 

Macclesfield— Free importation of French and German 
goods (especially black silks, velvets, and mixed goods). 

Manchester — The French treaty. 

Middleton— The French treaty of 1860, coupled with the 
adulterated dyes introduced into England by the French 
manufacturers. 

Nottingham— No decline, owing to the large increase in 
the use of silk-lace. 

If these replies are not a sad commentary on theoretical 
political economy I am at a loss to know what is. The trade 
of seven out of nine towns destroyed for an ^'economic prin- 
ciple." Thousands of industrious people forced to become 
paupers, and those who still find employment reduced to 



286 



BBEAD-WINNEB8 ABBOAD, 



the lowest rates of wages. In the subjoined table I have 
grouped together the actual wages paid at the present time 
to winders, weavers, and dyers in each of the British silk 
centers : 

Weekly Wages of Silk Workers. 



Silk Centers. 



Congleton. . . 
Coventry. . . 

Derby 

Leek 

London 

Macclesfield 
Manchester. 
Middleton. . 
Nottingham 



Winders. 



Weavers. 



$1.92 
1.44 
2.16 


$3.60 to 4.80 
2.16 to 3.60 
4.80 to 9.60 


2.*40to3.60 
2.16 to 2.40 
2.40 to 2.88 
2.88 
2.40 to 2.88 


3.60 to 12.66 
3. 12 to 3.36 
3.60 to 4.32 
3.60 
2.88 to 3.60 



Dyers. 



$2.88 to 4.80 
5.04 to 6.00 
4.32 

4.80 to 8.40 
4.84 

4.70 to 4.84 
4.70 
7.20 



With the exception of certain classes of weavers and dyers 
in Derby and London, and of dyers in Nottingham, the 
average weekly earnings of operatives in these towns are 
far less than $5 a week. The exceptions are rare, and for 
some special work. The average pay of winders does not 
exceed $2. 50 a week in England, as against probably more 
than double that sum in the United States; $3.50 to $5 per 
week is a Hberal rate for weavers who earn in the United 
States from $7.50 to $11 per week. Outside of London, 
Derby, and Nottingham dyers' wages in no case reach $5. 
In London and Derby the minimum is about $5 a week, 
while in Nottingham, owing to tlie special character of the 
work, $7.50 is paid. I should say that $10 a week is the 
minimum pay at home for dyers, while the maximum will 
reach $21 a week and even more. 

In this bird's-eye view of the silk industry of England we 
have learned something of its origin, distribution, growth, 
and decline under a mistaken economic system. The facts 
presented here for the first time to American readers can 
not be controverted. In spite of all pretenses to the con- 



MAGGLE8FIELD-CAUSE OF THE DECLINE, 287 

trary we find that one of the most important of England's 
great industries was hUghted by free trade. Practical men 
read these facts and are convinced. Theorists read them 
and proceed to argue what is isn't. In the course of this 
series of letters I propose to examine the other important 
industries of the kingdom, and thus ascertain as far as pos- 
sible the measure of success attained by free trade. I have 
given above some idea of the extent of this industry in its 
most prosperous days, when not less than 150,000 persons 
found employment in its various branches. At the present 
time, as we have seen, not more than 50,000 or 60,000 per- 
sons are employed in the industry. In 1859 there were forty 
firms of silk throwsters in Congleton. At the present time 
there are but twelve throwing mills, with on an average 
only about three-fourths of their machinery at work. Great 
efforts have been made in Coventry by the manufacturers 
to uphold the position of their goods in the markets, but 
free imports into the home market and the high tariffs of 
foreign nations have almost landed them in despair. In 
Derby I found that no statistics of the silk trade were kept, 
but it is generally admitted that the effects of the French 
treaty were prejudicial. Had I the space it would be inter- 
esting to dwell on the history of the silk trade of Leek. As 
far back as 1673 Leek was described as a poor town. In 
1773 Dr. Johnson, whose father was an apprentice in Leek 
in 1668-70, wrote: ''I have seen but one new place this 
journey, and that was Leek in the moorlands — an old church 
but a poor town." Button-making in silk and mohair and 
twist may be traced back 200 years in this town. Undoubt- 
edly some of the Dutch refugees made their way to Leek. 
Hand-made buttons are still made in Leek and the neighbor- 
ing villages, the makers earning the smallest pittances. 
There are about three hundred persons at present employed 
in button-making in this vicinity, earning from 96 cents to 
$1.92 per week. The special trade of the place is ^' small 
wares." Leek is also celebrated for a raven-black dye. 
There is no dye like it in the world, and it is supposed that 



288 BBEAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

the waters of this moorland neighborhood are among the 
best in Europe, and have helped Leek to retain the mono- 
poly of being the only sewing-silk center in England. I 
have prepared the following wage-table (which is official), 
that our sewing-silk operatives may compare it with the 
wages paid in the United States: 

Wages per week. 

Dyers (about) $4.32 

Cleaners 1.68 to 2.16 

Doublers 2.40 to 2.60 

Spoolers 2.60 to 2.84 

Pickers , 3 60 

Twisters 5.90 

Twisters' helpers 2. 16 

Binding power-loom weavers 3.80 to 6.00 

Hand-loom broad silk- weavers 2.40 to 5.90 

Men at spinning and throwing mills 3.40 to 4.32 

Braid-makers « , 4.84 

Warpers 3.36 

Lace-taggers 1. 68 to 2.00 

The silk industry of London reached its faost important 
notch in 1825. Free trade and lack of taste in designs have 
both contributed to its downfall. Efforts are now being 
made to produce finer goods than ever before manufactured 
in England, and of the purest dyes. A small rate of duty 
would soon change the tide in preference to foreign heavily 
weighted goods. Macclesfield has developed no particular 
style of work, but been content to copy French designs. 
The decline of the silk industry of Manchester and in its 
immediate neighborhood comprising a considerable number 
of districts has been very marked. It is directly traceable 
to the French treaty. The school of art at Nottingham, one 
of the best in the Kingdom, has had great influence on the 
success of the lace-trade, producing designers of great merit, 
who have been eagerly sought for, not only in Nottingham 
and in other parts of Great Britain, but also in France, 
Spain, and America. Derby has a school of art, and all 
these centers of the silk manufacture in England ought, in 
my opinion, to give more attention to designing and tech- 
nical education. Indeed, as we shall see in our tour through 



WORCESTER— GABLE ROOFS AJSD QUAINT COURTS. 289 

the industrial districts of continental Europe, unless they 
do give more attention to original patterns and designs, and 
to chemical research, they will be passed in the race by 
nations who were far behind England in manufacturing half 
a century ago. 



LXX. 

Worcester— Its Gable-Roofs and Quaint Courts. 

It was a bright, sunny day when I arrived at ancient and 
loyal Worcester. The surrounding country looked like a 
beautiful garden. The gable-roofs, the fine cathedral, the 
gray-stone churches, the clean streets, the bright shops, the 
quaint courts, the brisk, healthy people of the old city, and 
the cosey hotel, formed a pleasant contrast to the gloomy 
potteries and the dismal and smoky Black Country which I 
had so recently left without regret. The Severn, so red and 
angry at New Passage, approaches Worcester in a gentler 
manner, as if admiring the town, which deserves admira- 
tion, whether one regards its consistent history, its unques- 
tioned antiquity or its picturesque beauty. In Leland's time 
''the wealth of the town standeth mostly by drapering, 
and no town of England at this present maketh so many 
cloathes yearly as this town doth." A century later one of 
the old historians wrote of Worcester: ''But this glory 
arises from its inhabitants, who are numerous and polite 
and possessed of great wealth by the woolen manufacture ; 
from the lustre of its buildings, the number of its churches, 
and by its magnificent cathedral." In this cathedral, says 
Defoe, "among other noted monuments, is one for that 
famous Countess of Salisbury who, dancing before Edward 
III. in his great Hall at Windsor, dropped her garter, which 
the King, taking up, honored it so much (as the idle story 
goes) as to make it the denominating ensign of the most 
19 



290 t BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

noble Order of the Garter. But this I have refuted under 
my account of Windsor, though that the countess did drop 
her garter is a fact; and the King might gallantly, to 
silence the jests and railleries of the Court, wear it dur- 
ing the entertainment instead of his Garter of the Order." 
Be that as it may, ^'the monument is fine, and there is this 
remarkable in it, that there are several angels cut in stone 
about it, strewing garters over the tomb." 

As late as 1760 much mention was made of the cloth in- 
dustry of Worcester — ^Hhe number of hands which it 
employs in this town, and adjoining villages, in spinning, 
carding, roving, fulling, weaving, etc., is almost incredi- 
ble." That the Worcester people appreciated the value of 
the cloth industry, the following old verses indicate: 

Clothing doth other trades exceed as farr 
As splendid Sol outshines the dullest star, 

By it the poore doe gain their lively hood, 
Who otherwise might starve for want of food. 

Again: 

Advance but clothing and one need not sayle 
To Colchus, against dragons to prevayle, 

Or yoke wild bulls to gain the golden fleece, 
As Jason did who stray'd so far from Greece. 

They heeded not John Lewis and did not advance this 
important trade. The decay of this trade is said to be owing 
to the roguery of the manufacturers in stretching their 
cloths, but centuries before that period the clothing trade of 
the kingdom was noted for trickery. To-day, such is the 
vicissitudes of trade, that the industry has entirely died out ; 
not a yard of cloth is now manufactured here. 

It is gratifying to know that more than a century ago, 
Worcester was ^^ adorned by a capacious and beautiful 
structure, called a public workhouse, in which," we are 
told, ^^ children of both sexes are trained up to the knowl- 
edge of trade and the practice of religion and virtue." I re- 



WORCESTER— GABLE ROOFS AND QUAINT COURTS. 291 

gret to say that this much cannot be said of the 650 '* capa- 
cious and beautiful structures," called '^public workhouses," 
which ^' adorn" this entire island at the present time. 

To hear Englishmen of to-day talking about ^^our com- 
mercial policy, "one would hardly think that their '^ pohcy," 
or rather theory, was a century old, while in practice it is 
less than fifty years. It is amusing to read of the restric- 
tions on trade in Worcester, or for that matter, of any of the 
old EngUsh cities. In the ''good old times," a Worcester 
brewer dared not sell one drop of his liquor till ' ^ some sadde 
and discreete" personage from the corporation had tasted it 
and given his approval. Smithy had the length of his horse- 
shoe nails prescribed to him, and the corporation knew how 
many weeks every skin in the city was in tanning. It was 
a dangerous thing in those days for the fair dames of Wor- 
cester to wear '' any gown of silk, any French hood, or bon- 
net of velvet, any chain of gold about her neck, or wear any 
velvet in her lining or other part of her gown, other than 
her cuffs." The penalty for wearing this sort of finery was 
*'to keep continually and maintain one gelding, with suffi- 
cient harness and weapons for a light horseman." 

The Mayor and Aldermen of Worcester were never known 
to lose an opportunity to feast, especially at the cost of the 
city. Not only did they eat over the business meetings, but 
*' whenever any work of repair or improvement was to be 
inspected in the city, also after perambulations, or when 
bishops sent a buck, or when news of peace or war arrived." 
When James II. visited the city in 1687, he attended divine 
service at the Roman Catholic chapel. The Worshipful 
Mayor of Worcester, who evidently felt he had the Protest- 
antism of the nation in his keeping, refused to accompany 
the King into the chapel, remarking: ^'I think we have at- 
tended your Majesty too far already." The worthy Mayor 
repaired, however, to the Green Dragon, and ^'beare and 
tobacko," also ^'sundrie banckequets and drynkyns," were 
all charged up to the corporation. 



293 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



LXXI. 

Worcester.— The Royal Porcelain Works. 

When George III. visited Worcester in 1788, he is said to 
have got up very early and visited the great porcelain works 
for which the city has been for more than a century famous. 
He greatly admired the beautiful display, and ordered an 
extensive assortment, and to express his royal approval he 
granted his warrant permitting the estabhshment hence- 
forth to be called ** Royal." These works were established 
in 1751. The staple manufacture of the city had been 
declining, the cloth manufacturers had been driven away, 
as I have already shown, by unsatisfactory trading; carpets 
and gloves were still made, but did not afford sufficient oc- 
cupation for the people. The manufacture of porcelain was 
engaging the attention of the Priaces of Europe. Bow and 
Chelsea in England were then the seats of the trade. Worce- 
ster began the trade about this time, making a fine porce- 
lain, and decorating it after the Chinese taste. The styles 
adopted at Worcester were varied, but were generally 
selected from the finest examples of Japanese and Chinese, 
and Dresden manufacture, as well as the very beautiful 
ware of Sevres and Chelsea. From 1760 to 1775 some ex- 
tremely beautiful wares were produced. In the early part 
of the present century, Worcester had few competitors in 
the manufacture of first-class porcelain. It was encouraged 
(as all such manufactures must be) by the patronage of the 
King and Royal Family, which the company admit ^'was 
liberally accorded, and stimulated the production of both 
fine porcelain and artistic production." Indeed, ^'a special 
body called Regent Porcelain was invented for the Prince 
Regent, and found great favor in Court." Aided by kings 
and princes, and after an existence of over a century, these 



WORCESTER— TEE ROYAL PORCELAIN WORKS. 293 

great works now employ more than 600 persons, and have a 
world-wide reputation. 

The manufactures of this establishment embrace the fol- 
lowing varieties: fine porcelain, ivory porcelain, vitreous 
stone-ware, crown-ware, Parian, majolica, and terra-cotta. 
The styles of decoration in use at the Royal Porcelain Works 
embrace all those usual on pottery and porcelain, but the 
specialty peculiar to this work are perforated porcelain, 
ivory porcelain, Raphaelesque decorations, bronze and me- 
tallic decorations, jewelled porcelain, enamels on royal blue 
and modelled and colored golds. A learned Frenchman 
once said: *' I know of no art which presents, in the study 
of its practice, its theory, and its history, so many interest- 
ing and varied considerations as the ceramic art." And for 
these reasons it should receive all the encouragement possi- 
ble in the United States. Few who have not visited these 
establishments can appreciate the work in even a single 
piece of the commonest earthenware, to say nothing of the 
beautiful designs of such places as the Worcester factory 
and Minton's. To produce an ordinary cup *^ the clays of 
Dorset and Devonshire, the flints of Kent, the granite of 
Cornwall, the lead of Montgomery, the manganese of War- 
wickshire, and the soda of Cheshire, must be conveyed from 
their respective districts ;" and after all the material arrives 
on the ground it must pass through, on the average, at least 
eighteen different hands or processes before it can be sent 
out in a perfect condition — the miller, the sHp-maker, the 
preparer of clay, the bailer, the thrower, the carrier, the 
turner, the handler, the biscuit firemen, the scourer, the 
dipper, the gloss-fireman, the sorter, the printer, the painter, 
the gilder, the enamel fireman, and the burnisher. I have 
discussed in a previous letter the classes of operatives, and 
shown the great excess of wages paid each grade in the 
United States over England. It must also be borne in mind 
that 90 per cent, if not more, of the value of pottery and 
porcelain, is labor. 

It is to be hoped that with the slightly increased protection 



294 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

recommended by the Tariff Commission and adopted by- 
Congress, the manufactm*ers of Trenton will turn their at- 
tention a little more to printed ware. The EngUsh potter is 
very dissatisfied with the new tariff, and the newspapers 
here declare that *^ competitive foreigners had succeeded in 
supplying at low prices wares of new designs and pleasing 
decorations, which cannot be produced in the United States. 
The tariff virtually prohibits the further importation of this 
class of goods, by classifying them with the most costly 
china ware, so that an ornamental plate worth $3 and an- 
other worth only eight cents will both have to pay the same 
rate of duty, 60 per cent ad valorem. The aim of this un- 
just classification is to compel the consumer to give up the 
purchase of cheap imported printed ware which cannot be 
made in the United States, and drive him to buy the white 
goods that are made there. People must, therefore, remain 
content to take their coffee in ugly white cups, that weigh 
something less than a pound each, and are not quite half-an- 
inch thick." 

The animus of the above is plainly seen, and the same 
newspaper characterizes American manufacturers as '^the 
clumsy crockery makers of New Jersey." This rather pro- 
vokes a smile after reading the three quotations in my Burs- 
lem letter, all from English authorities, in which they speak 
of the wonderful excellence of American ware. But the 
excellence of our plain ware was thoroughly established in 
the testimony before the Tariff Commission. As to decor- 
ated ware, the potters themselves frankly admitted that 
*' our decorations being confined to very cheap and common 
patterns, are mainly used for toilet wares." Again Mr. 
Brewer said : 

Of course, it has been impossible for us to compete with 
the cultured, educated, and well-trained hands of England or 
the Continent, in general decoration, as we have had to 
content ourselves with bands and lines, or some cheap and 
special American patterns. Not that this feature of our 
business pays us at all (for it does not pay) ; our competition 



WORGESTER—THE ROYAL PORCELAIN WORKS. 295 



in this branch of our trade is the most unequal of all. But 
being potters, our people demand that we advance. We 
must advance or have our whole market taken away by a 
supersedure of decorated for plain wares. Europe has cul- 
tivated, by subsidy, by schools of design, by Government 
potteries, this particular branch, until almost every house- 
hold has its decorator. They have labor in this line in great 
abundance. We must create, cultivate, and by slow degrees 
grow into this branch of the trade. True, we could import, 
and, to a very great extent, must import this labor ready- 
made, so to speak, but here we meet the greatest obstacle. 
This branch of the trade is the best paid abroad, and work- 
men must have great inducements offered to induce them 
to leave their present profitable employment. 

This is certainly true at Worcester— the employees of the 
Eoyal Worcester Porcelain Works are a very superior class 
of men. They live in comfortable houses, and are interested 
in all sorts of artistic studies. A Government school of art 
located here was established more than thirty years ago. It 
is well conducted, and the Earl of Dudley is the president. 
The same is true of the pottery. Besides the Wedgewood 
Institute, which Mr. Gladstone, in his opening address, char- 
acterized as '^ a national institution," there are several art 
schools, and Government schools, all for the purpose of 
fostering this important and truly beautiful art, which has 
never flourished in Europe except under the most distin- 
guished patronage. There is, I beheve, only one manufac- 
turer in the United States who makes a Hne of table-ware 
porcelain, and he admitted before the Tariff Commission 
that if the present rate of duty was adhered to he could ex- 
tend the manufacture. It is not probable that with the 
competition of such estabhshments as Minton's, Copeland's, 
and Worcester, America wiU make much headway in the 
highly decorated ware, but there is no reason why the Tren- 
ton potters should fail to keep their promise to the Tariff 
Commission and produce a good, cheap and yet handsome 
line of printed goods, and in this way prove how utterly 



296 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

false are the charges recently made by the English press that 
they ^* cannot make cheap printed ware." They can make 
better white ware than the EngUsh, and with a more satis- 
factory classification of the tariff there is now no reason 
why they should not make good common print- ware. Will 
the Trenton potters rest under this charge of ^'ugly white 
cups that weigh something less than half-a-pound each, and 
are not quite half-an-inch thick !" Surely not. 



LXXII. 

Nottingham— The Old City of Tiggocobawc. 

Nottingham was a town a thousand years before Christ. 
John Rouse at least thinks so, and I have no desire to ques- 
tion him nor space to enter into speculation on the subject. 
A later writer very aptly suggests that, if there be truth in 
the legend, one would like to know something of the manners 
and customs of the old and young people ; how they lived, 
how they made love, how they did not dress, how they 
cooked their hips and haws, and what good liquor they 
swallowed with that primitive diet. The old city was known 
by the rough British name *' Tiggocobawc." The son of 
Alfred the Great has been credited with founding Notting- 
ham, but antiquarians now say that he founded half of it, 
uniting the ancient city of the unpronounceable name by a 
bridge with the new city he had formed. He founded what 
some have called an opposition city, partly military, partly 
commercial, to awe and to stimulate. This he did at Not- 
tingham. He settled as many Danes as Saxons. "Enemies," 
says Dr. Doran, ^'then became friends; we cannot doubt 
that the old people entered into partnership, and the young 
people followed the example of their parents. The shy Olga 
learned to raise her soft blue eyes in trusting love upon the 
straight-limbed Saxon Edwy ; and on the broad chest of the 



NOTTINGHAM— TEE OLD CITY OF TIOGOCOBAWG. 297 

Danish Sciold lay the fair head of his young wife Ethelfieda, 
'hke Hebe in Hercules's arms !' " Of such ancestry (with a 
cross of wholesome pagan blood) comes the present Notting- 
hamshire race. 

Unlike the cities which formed the topics of my last let- 
ters (Coventry and Worcester), Nottingham was never 
stormed and taking by an invading army. It came nearest 
to it when the thrifty Yorkshire Royalists, not caring about 
making those *' clothing-towns" the seat of war, persuaded 
Charles I. to go to Nottingham and hoist the royal standard. 
But it was a stormy day and the wind blew the standard 
down, and when after a few days it was finally set up again, 
no one paid much attention to it. To use the words of 
Clarendon : ' ' There appeared no conflux of men in obedience 
to the proclamation ; the arms and ammunition were not yet 
come from York; a general sadness covered the whole 
town, and the King himself appeared more melancholic than 
he used to be." But Charles soon left it, I have no doubt to 
the great joy of the inhabitants, and the Parliament kept 
possession of the town and the castle till the close of the war. 
The castle, long before the days of the Stuarts had acquired 
a gloomy pre-eminence on account of the procession of royal 
murderers who, in some way or other, were connected with 
it. It was originally built by an illegitimate son of William 
the Conqueror. Poor EdVard II. held a great feast within 
its gray walls, drank wine and laughed at the jests of his 
subsequent murderers. His wife, the light Lady Isabel, 
with Mortimer, fled into this stronghold, and for a time de- 
fled Edward III. The Queen, it is said, ridiculed their ef- 
forts, and slept soundly, with the keys of the castle under 
her pillow. The young King for a time was obliged to bite 
his lips and kick his heels in the market-place below, while 
his festive mother looked down from the high parapets of 
the castle with scorn upon her enemies. But through treach- 
ery admission was obtained, and while Mortimer was hur- 
ried off to London to adorn a gibbet, the Queen was taken 
to prison, where she ended her days. Again, I have no 



298 BBEAD-WINNEB8 ABBOAD. 

doubt, Nottingham rejoiced, for royalty rarely visited the 
town but to perpetrate or plot some crime. 

In Nottingham Castle Richard II. planned the murder of 
his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and for this deed Kent, 
Rutland, Huntingdon and Somerset won their steps to the 
peerage, while Thomas Mowbray, for superintending the 
affair, was raised to the rank of Duke of Norfolk, Many 
distinguished prisoners have been reduced to skeletons in 
the dark, damp cells of Nottingham Castle, and this reminds 
me that when the grandfather of this Richard II., Edward 
III., was old, ^^a year or two only before his death, when 
Alice Ferrers was as saucy and imperious as ever the Du 
Barry was with Louis XV. and his people, there was carried 
through Nottingham, up to the Castle, a prisoner at whom 
the citizans stared in respectful wonder ; but they felt much 
indignation at the woman who was the cause of his captivity. 
For a stern word uttered to this Alice, Petrus de la Marc, 
Speaker of the House of Commons, or holding an office 
equivalent to that called so now, was thrown into the keep 
at Nottingham Castle, where he lingered a couple of years." 

But I had almost forgotten a memorable event in the 
history of Nottingham, which took place in 1485, when, no 
doubt, the magnificent market-place (the largest in the king- 
dom) was "alive, trembling or rejoicing," at the mustering 
hosts Richard III. had called tlfere just before the fatal 
battle of Bosworth Field. The Silver Boar, it is said, spark- 
led on the banners. The gazers, at his passage through the 
streets, flung up their caps, or held their voices mute, accord- 
ing as their judgments, caprices or impulses prompted them. 
I have no doubt, as when Charles I. left the town, the good 
people of ancient '^ Tiggo cobans" breathed freer and in their 
secret hearts rejoiced. 

The Nottingham folk have always been noted for their 
capacity to enjoy good beer, and centuries ago the town was 
noted for its ale. In olden times the jolly laborers "after 
dinner sat and drank, with liberty to leave the hall three 
times and return as often to drink as much as they could 



NOTTtNGBAM—lTS LACE-MAKERS, 299 

carry under their girdles." And then, in joyous procession, 
they were allowed to carry away a bucket containing eight 
flagons of beer. The Nottingham municipal corporation, 
noted for its hospitality to guests, never feasted itself, and 
in this was exactly opposite to the neighboring City of Worce- 
ster. After the ceremonies inaugurating the new Mayor 
came a frugal banquet, in which bread and cheese satisfied 
the appetite, and pipes and tobacco were added as luxuries. 
Nothing is said about fine old ale. Nottingham to-day has 
more than a thousand public houses and beer shops, and at 
night they are crowded. A recent city official said to me: 
*' Nottingham has the reputation of being the most drunken 
city in the Kingdom." While I think this rather a strong 
statement, I must admit that a tremendous amount of heavy 
beer drinking is going on. not only among the men but the 
women and even girls. There were about 1,300 convictions 
last year for drunkenness, against 264 convictions in Brad- 
ford, a larger town, but containing less than half the number 
of drinking shops. 

For six centuries Nottingham has been a manufacturing 
town. Like Dundee, Scotland, it has tried mrmy things, 
and at last it has made a grand success. The industrial pro- 
cession of the past would be headed by woolen cloth (the 
manufacture of Lincoln green cloths in King John's time), 
followed by malting, hardware, tanning, bone lace-working, 
framework knitting and lace-making by machinery, which 
latter form to-day the great industry of the place. 



LXXIII. 

Nottingham— Its Lace-Makers. 

To SAY, says a recent writer in Blackwood's, that the 
fine and delicate machine-made fabric which falls in soft 
folds before our windows, or forms the graceful, cloud-hke 



300 BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD,. 

charm of a ball-dress, owes its origin to the useful but un- 
beautiful stocking, may at first sight seem as absurd as to 
attempt to trace the descent of a humming-bird from a frog, 
but that hosiery is the parent of lace is nevertheless true. 
It was by the many varied modifications of the stocking 
frame that machine-made lace was first produced. Else, 
Harvey Hammond, Lindley, Frost and several others for 
years exerted their ingenuity in perfecting a machine for 
manufacturing a machine-made imitation of the costly and 
beautiful article known as hand-made or cushion lace. 

The love of beer, which has been shown to be a Notting- 
ham characteristic, is said to have been the first incentive 
to Hammond's inventions in this direction. He had been 
refused entertainment at a public house for want of money. 
Inspired by a desire to gain enough silver for the purchase of 
his coveted beer, Hammond went home and applied himself 
eagerly to the production of what he called '' Valenciennes 
lace." It sold well and quickly, and enabled him to satisfy 
the end for which he invented it. He spent most of the 
money it brought him in drink. But the great invention 
was the frame for making *' bobbin-net," a machine which 
would produce twisted and traversed meshes in net. Until 
this object could be effected the mesh was neither durable 
nor secure, and its utility was seriously imperilled. It is 
said that nearly twenty artisans spent the better part of 
their life in this search, but in 1808 a Derbyshire man named 
Heathcoat achieved what for years had seemed an impos- 
sible feat, and produced one of the most complex and ingeni- 
ous inventions of modern times. Heathcoat thus has the 
credit of having founded the manufacture of machine lace, 
and helped to raise Nottingham to its position of importance 
among the manufacturing towns of Great Britain by the 
construction of a machine which Ure describes as ^'surpas- 
sing every other branch of industry by the complex ingenu- 
ity of its machinery. A bobbin-net frame is as much beyond 
the most curious chronometer as that is beyond a roasting- 
jack." A great check to the then fast-increasing prosperity 



NOTTINGHAM— ITS LACE-MAKEllS. 301 

of Nottingham lace manufacture was given by the Luddite 
riots, which for several years discouraged industry in the 
Midland and Northern counties, and an account of which I 
gave in my Huddersfield letter. 

The next improvement on Heathcoat's machine was made 
by Lever. It is described as far more delicate and complex 
in construction, and suited to the production of fancy and 
ornamental work. Its movements are so rapid that no eye 
can follow its countless evolutions. Great skill is required 
in managing it, and a single machine is said to produce an- 
nually $90,000 worth of goods. The fancy varieties of lace 
goods are constantly increasing, and several hundred varie- 
ties of nets and laces have been produced. 

When steam and water power was first introduced in 1820 
it had the effect of putting down the small frames worked in 
cottages, and the operatives flocked to the town. Large fac- 
tories sprang up rapidly, and the sudden mania resulting 
from this change is thus graphically described: 

Money began to pour into the town like a shower of gold, 
and the excitement and anticipation of the dazzling prospect 
opened before them raised the minds of the masters and 
operatives to the highest pitch of intoxication. In fact it 
was a regular mania, locally known as * ' the twist-net fever, " 
and for nearly a twelvemonth prudence and caution were 
thrown to the wmds. Enormous speculations were indulged 
in; mechanics who had never studied the working of a lace 
machine were engaged to construct frames of the most com- 
pUcated character by eager speculators as ignorant as them- 
selves; and the large wages offered and received were spent 
with a frightful prodigality. Companies were quickly 
formed and buildings erected, never to be used, for when in 
the following year, the consequences of this unnatural infla- 
tion took place and the bubble burst, the universal despair 
and consternation were very great. Thousands were plunged 
into the deepest poverty, many actually died of starvation ; 
some left the country, and others went hopelessly insane or 
died by their own act. 



302 BBEAD-WINNEES ABROAD. 

It was some years before the lace trade recovered from 
the shock. In 1822 another period of distress occurred and 
frame-breaking was once more revived. The Eeform riots 
and burning of Nottingham castle ended this season of want 
and misery. In 1835 the application of the Jacquard prin- 
ciple to lace-manufacture gave it a fresh start, and the pro- 
gress and prosperity — with one or two lesser interruptions — 
has continued until the terrible crisis of 1876-78, caused 
partly by overstocking of the American market, partly by 
the depression in trade arising from a caprice in fashion. In 
this industry England has practically a monopoly, as the 
United States have not yet attempted lace-making by 
machinery. It is an industry that ought to be established 
in America as much as that of the manufacture of fine porce- 
lain. But the same difficulty presents itself. 

In Nottingham the fine Government School of Art affords 
every facility for the education of lace-designers for whom 
there are special classes. The effect of this wise provision 
has made itself felt in the wonderful improvement in the 
taste and execution of lace designs during the last few years. 
This branch of talent commands the very highest remunera- 
tion. The secrets of the trade are jealously guarded from 
other manufacturers, and it is not without some difficulty 
that one obtains admittance to the works. 

The lace trade is almost exclusively confined to England, 
so far as factory work is concerned, there being 282 factories 
in the counties of Derby, Nottingham and Leicester. But a 
good deal of domestic work is carried on under various 
forms, principally pillow-lace, in those of Bucks, Oxford, 
Beds, and Devon, while Ireland furnishes guipure lace from 
Limerick. The number of persons emplied in the factories 
is given as 10,164, but the total number of lace- workers of all 
kinds, nearly all women and children, is 49,370. I visited 
some of the largest establishments while in the city, and am 
indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Jasper Smith, the United 
States Consul, for accompanying me through the establish- 
ment of Thomas Adams & Co. The girls in this establish- 



NOTTINGHAM— ITS LACE-MAKERS, 303 

ment a very superior class of operatives, well dressed and 
seemingly well cared for. They have a handsome little 
chapel with stained glass windows connected with the fac- 
tory, and every morning before beginning work a short 
service is read by the chaplain of the factory. The lace- 
workers are noticeably free from the stunted, half -fed ap- 
pearance characteristic of operatives in other trades. The 
lace girls of Nottingham have still some claim to beauty. A 
great variety of public institutions for their health, instruc- 
tion, comfort and amusement have been established. 

In the evening I went to the theatre, procuring a seat in 
the shilling part of the house— the pit. In no Enghsh city 
have I seen such an orderly, well-dressed class of people. 
The girls came out in the finest ''Dewsbury sealskin," 
Gainsborough hats covered with subdued shades of *' Brad- 
ford plush." It was a gay scene. From there I visited the 
Talbot— a large and handsomely fitted up music hall fre- 
quented largely by the working classes, especially the girls. 
It was the finest establishment of the kind I have yet seen 
in England. A good deal of drinking was going on, but 
nothing offensive. Eespectable girls in parties of two and 
three ; and married women, some accompanied by their hus- 
bands, but others without escorts, sat down to friendly ale, 
or '^ a drop of cold gin," and listened to the really excellent 
music. This is a picture of the condition of the operatives of 
an industry in which England has no competitors, in which 
she holds the market, in which low wages to crush out 
foreign rivals have not become a necessity. Is it surprising, 
then, that we read the following in the British prints from 
an American correspondent : 

The lacemakers of Nottingham may congratulate them- 
selves on the defeat of a well- planned attempt to estabHsh a 
rival manufacture of their specialty in this country, by a 
large increase of the import duty on laces. There are no cot- 
ton laces made here, because the material costs more than 
the lace. It was sought to remove this impediment through 
the medium of the tariff. The attempt failed through the 



304 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

opposition of Senator Morrill, who repeatedly declared that 
there were no cotton laces worth more than 25 cents a yard. 
I suppose that most of the Senators' wives could have told 
them that the most expensive laces are made entirely of cot- 
ton, and imitation laces are now made that are worth a dol- 
lar a yard. However, the Senator's assurance to the con- 
trary carried the day, and no change of importance was 
made in the duty on laces. 

This is the pleasant side of lace-making. The other has 
been sternly depicted by a recent English writer, who pic- 
tures Nottingham in times of bad trade, when, instead of 
working double hours, many factories stand silent and 
empty, and more have but a small number of machines work- 
ing to fill the few orders which are eagerly sought for ; when 
in place of the many groups of work-girls, in their bright 
dress, at the theatre and the Talbot, one sees anxious, serious 
faces, and the look of hopeless gloom settled on those who 
cannot find work. Then the cry is: "Heaven help us all; 
what shall we do if times don't mend?" But Nottingham to- 
day is gay, the spacious market-place at night is thronged, 
the brilliantly illuminated gin palaces glare without as the 
glasses clink within. Music issues forth from half a hun- 
dred concert-places chorussed with peals of laughter ; money 
is being earned and spent. Let us hope the good times will 
continue. There are few more interesting places in England 
than the fine old town I have attempted to describe. Its 
narrow, winding hills only mounted by steps, the long zig- 
zag courts with butting gabled houses, all bespeak its anti- 
quity. In the low quarters of the place filth, squalor and 
poverty abound more than in Bradford, Derby or Leicester. 
But for all this the beautiful meadows which surround the 
old town are already clothed in their wonted rich green, 
and are "converted into a seeming lake of violet crocuses." 
There indeed may the Nottingham lass find "a charm for 
the eye, and a charm for the ear in the songs of the birds 
that hang enchanted above the magic carpet. It is truly 
said that Nottingham is Flower Town, the English Florence, 



LEICESTER-A FAMOUS TOWN. 305 

for yonng and old go forth to collect and cany away the 
precioas tTf^ahuren of the fields, and all return laden with 
8we<^tfi to the town, joyous beneath their double burden and 
rieh in t?ie two-fold fragrance of youth and of flowers. '^ 



LXXTV. 

LsiCBgrrEB— A Famous Towir. 

This town, and the famous county in which it is located, 
have long boasted the broadest beans, the heaviest sheep, 

the largest horses and the longest staple of wool in England. 
The cafitle, abbey, gates, and some other ancient structures, 
still remain in the memory of Leicester people and in the 
guide book, though in fact they have nearly crumbled away, 
and the busy xyjxjulation of to-day devote most of their 
energy to the manufacture of hosiery and shoes. Leicester 
celebrities have beec numeroiLS. not, says one writer, to 
say numberless, from Lady Jane Grey to Little Miss 
Linwo<yl. ^^bo worked her efl^es in worsted-work that 
looked marvelloixsly like what it really was, and made 
the good, old dames of her time half worship that Queen of 
the Needle. The heroes are said to date from the days of 
the Kingdom of Mercia. and Leicester is not sterile of such 
productions yet. Near Leicester is Bosworth Field and the 
road from Bosworth to the battlefield skirts Bosworth 
I>arLsh, and is very beautiful. Perhaps the fact that this 
battle closed the Wars of the Eoses may account for the 
attraction and fascinations that Bosworth has over the 
other battles of the Roses. Volumes have been written 
about it and it is familiar to every American tomist. 

The present city of Leicester strikes a .stranger as a highly 
res-pectable town, not so large or so bu.sy as Nottingham, 
but in some respects not irnHke Derby. It is clean, well- 
paved, and has several rather fine pubhc buildings and 
20 



306 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

substantial business blocks, and in the residence portion of 
the city some handsome villas. It is the sort of place to 
locate charitable institutions in, and buildings having a half- 
hospital appearance loom up in different parts of the town. 
While it has not the busy appearance of some factory towns, 
it certainly has not the amount of filth, the poverty, the 
dark alleys, the array of gin-shops and the amount of 
drunkenness. Some of the streets remind one of ancient, 
gray-walled York, but nothing so antiquated as Stone Gate. 
Leicester is the center of the hosiery trade, and if any one 
cares to look at a map he will find it is also the center of 
England itself, though the Leicester people do not seem so 
proud of the fact as their Worcester cousins across the 
Atlantic, who constantly speak of Worcester as the center 
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The present popu- 
lation of Leicester is about 125,000, and the increase during 
the last decade has been about 28,000. 

The most trustworthy authority gives the honor of found- 
ing the hosiery trade to the Eev. William Lee, of Calverton, 
in Nottinghamshire, who flourished about the time of Queen 
Elizabeth. Hand-knitting with wood or steel needles had 
only been introduced about thirty years, and prior to that 
time our ancestors' hose had been cut out by the scissors 
from cloth of wool or silk and sewed up to the size and 
shape of the leg. According to the story, Lee was less 
anxious to furnish the world with better stockings than he 
was to obtain the affections of a young lady who, whenever 
he called, seemed more absorbed in her knitting than in the 
words of her lover. His aim was to make hand -knitting a 
gainless employment. He succeeded, and the first stocking 
frame produced hose at least seven times as fast as the most 
adroit fingers could knit them. The machine was exhibited 
to Queen Elizabeth, but she was mortified to find that it 
produced nothing but coarse woolen stockings; had they 
been silk, the said, she would have forwarded the invention, 
but coarse woolen— oh, no! and the good Queen elevated 
her royal blue nose and strode majestically from Lee's 



LEICESTER— A FAMOUS TOWN, 307 

garret. Then Lee went to work, and at last made the 
Queen a pair of silk hose, which she accepted, but did noth- 
ing for the ingenious maker. After Elizabeth's death Lee 
felt quite sure of the patronage of the Highland King, for 
James had borrowed a pair of silk stockings at Edinburgh, 
of the Earl of Mar, that he might not appear at the English 
Court as a *' scrub before strangers." But Lee soon learned 
not to put his trust in kings and princes, and having 
received an invitation, he packed up his machine and went 
to France, where he carried on his industry, as one writer 
says, '^ with great applause." But with the assassination of 
Henry IV. his prospects were once more blighted, and being 
suspected on account of his Protestantism, he fell into pov- 
erty and a deeper gloom, and sunk broken-hearted into the 
grave in the year 1610. Fortunately his brother James 
understood the business, and he brought the machine back 
and started the London Hosiery Manufacture, and from 
that time frames began to multiply in Nottingham, Leices- 
ter and Derby, until there are now in Great Britain a large 
number of hosiery factories employing many thousands of 
hands, besides those employed in the rural districts on the 
hand machines, and the thousands of women and children 
employed in the country places surrounding Nottingham 
and Leicester, and in the cities as menders, seamers, winders, 
cutters, finishers and makers-up. Some authorities give the 
total number, as far back as 1866, as 150,000. But I think 
this is all guess-work, for Bevan's Statistical Atlas, pub- 
lished last year, puts the factory hands down as numbering 
15,000, and those engaged as workers at hosiery in England 
at about 40,000. With existing data I can give nothing 
definite as to the numerical importance of this industry at 
the present time. 

The history of the trade to which Leicester owes its pros- 
perity is one of the most melancholy chapters in the Indus- 
trial History of England, and although Parliamentary 
interference has ameliorated the sufferings of the workers 
by the abolition of ^' frame rents," the outlook of the trade. 



308 BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

to-day, owing to various causes, to use the language of a 
representative working hosier, is ^^ gloomy indeed" for the 
work people. One of the leading causes of the depression 
among the frame-work knitters is the disproportion existing 
between the supply of their labor and the demand for it. 
*^ The knitter of the future," said Mr. Rowley, president of 
the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation of the Hosiery 
Trade, '^ will be the man who can manage and watch intri- 
cate machinery, as in a cotton or woolen factory, and not 
the man dexterous as a frame- work knitter." 

Before the trade began to crystallize into the factory 
system the trade of framework-knitting was accessible to 
the unemployed laborers of all other classes, from the facil- 
ity with which a knowledge of the trade could be acquired, 
especially in the common branches. This also admitted the 
competition of women and children, all tending to reduce 
wages, and now that power machinery, factories and town 
operatives, are, to some extent, taking the place of the hand- 
frame, the cottage and the rural workers, there are large 
numbers thrown out of work who must obtain employment 
at something else, emigrate or go to that bourne which is 
the birthright of every Englishman— the workhouse. 

The heaviest grievance under which the Leicester stock- 
ing-weaver suffered for half a century or more was the 
outrageous system of /^ frame rents," which was finally 
abolished in 1873 by much-despised *' legislative interfer- 
ence," since which time the lot of the framework knitter 
has been a little more bearable. The rent varied from Is. 
(24 cents) to 3s. (72 cents) per week on frames that could be 
bought second-hand at from £4 to £12 ($20 to $60), and the 
full week's rent was charged when only half-employed. 
This system ground the poor stocking-weaver to dust, and 
when the ^^ rents " and '' charges" were deducted the week's 
earnings had melted away. Actual instances are known 
where the frame rent, stitching, winding, standing and 
taking in, needles, candles and coal came to 8s. 7d., and the 
total pay to £1, leaving a balance for the weaver of only 



LEICESTER-^THE NEUTRAL MR, HAXBT, 309 

lis. 5d. for his week's work. As a result of this terrible 
system frames were multipHed merely to produce rents. 
The operatives were on the verge of starvation several 
times, and the report of a Royal commissioner appointed to 
look into their condition, brought to light the most terrible 
sufferings. At last some of the more humane employers 
determined to abolish the the rent system, and all contracts 
with the employees were made free from rents. But the 
great bulk refused to follow until compelled in 1873 by act 
of t^arliament. 



LXXV. 

Leicester— The Neutral Mr. Haxby. 

I have before me the price lists agreed to on the abolition 
of ''loom-rents" and now in vogue, showing the prices for 
making knit, middle, and fine gauge hose and half-hose. In 
this arrangement, though rents are abohshed, if the em- 
ployer provides machinery he deducts Is. 4d. (32 cents) in 
the £1 in lieu of frame rent. For work on the steam rotary 
frames net prices are given and the employer provides 
winding, fire, light and needles. Then there is a third price 
list called ' ' the 17i per cent statement of net prices of 
middle and find gauge hose and half -hose," all signed "on 
behalf of the trade " by T. P. Bailey. These documents are 
each formidable and give the prices paid in great detail, but 
it is very difficelt to ascertain how much the operatives 
earn. I called on Mr. Bailey, who is supposed to represent 
the workmen on the Board of Arbitration, but who strikes 
one as a very deep old gentleman, with one eye open for the 
employer. He was one of those men who talked a good 
deal but said very little. He admitted the prospect for the 
work people was very gloomy. The Union was helping the 
men to emigrate to America and New-Zealand ; those going 



310 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

to America were allowed £3 and those to New-Zealand £6. 
Only a few had gone. Others talked of going. I was after- 
ward told by other gentlemen that large numbers from 
Leicester were going to the states, but these had nothing to 
do with the Union. Mr. Bailey said that the hand-frame 
knitters were still by far the most numerous class of opera- 
tives in the industry, and the average weekly wages of 
hand-frame knitters (piece work) according to Jasper Smith. 
Consul at Nottingham (see page 78, State Department 
Report No. 23), varies from $3.41 to $4.14. Thus more than 
one-half of the men employed in this industry receive each 
but $4 a week. From inquiry, I think Mr. Smith's estimate 
trustworthy. Women employed in the factories can earn 
in this business about as follows : 

Weekly wages. 

Hand stitchers and seamers, piece $1 95 

Power stitchers and seamers, piece $3 92 to 3 65 

Power willers and framers off, piece 3 65 to 4 86 

Power winders, both time and piece 2 68 to 3 16 

Cutters, time 3 65 

Menders factory, piece 2 92 to 3 90 

Folders, warehouse, piece 3 40 to 4 15 

Folders, warehouse, time 2 70 to 2 92 

Menders, warehouse, piece 2 92 to 3 65 

Menders, warehouse, time 2 92 

Makers up by hand 2 43 to 3 40 

Makers up by power 3 65 to 4 15 

Eotary power frame knitters can earn in England by the 
piece from $8.50 to $9.73. In the United States their average 
weekly earnings were, in 1881, $17.86. Knitters in the United 
States earn $8.94, more than double that of the ordinary 
hand here. In this branch of industry it is almost impos- 
sible to obtain information. Not long ago the State Depart- 
ment wrote to the Consular Agent at Nottingham for a 
few samples of hosiery with the wholesale prices. He could 
not obtain them, and even such a firm as I. & R. Morley 
refused to give the representative of the United States a few 



LEICESTER— THE NEUTRAL MR. HAXBT. 311 

samples of hosiery ^' unless the Government of the United 
States made a formal request of the British Government 
that samples be furnished." This is the undignified way in 
which America's representatives are treated, and yet the 
official figures show that from this same Consular District 
in the last five years nearly $33,000,000 worth of goods have 
been bought and paid for by citizens of the United States 
— and when the State Department asks for a few samples of 
goods they are refused. And yet the same manufacturers, 
as I shall show further along, say it is a shame that Ameri- 
cans cannot share their wealth with them, and complain 
about the tariff. 

In a report made May 25, 1882, the United States repre- 
sentative at Nottingham frankly acknowledges that he can 
obtain no information on the subjects called for by the 
Department. I called on the gentleman that represents the 
United States at Leicester, and to show what an utterly hope- 
less task it would be to obtain information from him, I shall 
give the interview in full. 

Mr. Joseph B. Haxby is an attorney, and he is the Consu- 
lar Agent of the United States at Leicester. When I was 
ushered into the presence of Mr. Haxby he at once impressed 
me with the fact that he was one of the fairest of men, and 
that his position was one of an arbiter between two great 
nations. Indeed, had Mr. Haxby not been masculine and 
florid and stout and British, one might have mistaken him 
for blindfolded Justice herself, so exalted were his ideas 
about giving information. 

'' I am here, sir," said Mr. Haxby, '* to certify invoices. 
This I have done for years and never had a complaint from 
either Government. In this matter I represent two great Gov_ 
ernments, and I must be absolutely neutral. I never ask 
questions; I never answer questions. Our people here 
would not allow any interference. That is, I could not tell 
you anything about labor or wages or the condition of the 
people. Indeed I know absolutely nothing, in my neutral 
position, about the condition of the work-people." And 



312 BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

here the heart of the neutral Mr. Haxby relaxed, and he 
jerked out : ^'Ido know that the manufacturers squeeze the 

poor d Is of operatives all they dare ; I do know that. 

But of course in my neutral position I could not give an 
opinion ; they would soon draw my teeth for me here, 
should I do so. Our people here don't like opinions, and if 
you want information I could not in my neutral position 
go round with you, because you see the manufacturers 
might wonder what you wanted, and I don't think they 
would give you much information." 

I assured Mr. Haxby that I had no intention of troubling 
him ; that I had already interviewed Mr. Rowley, represent- 
ing the manufacturers ; Mr. Bailey, representing the work- 
ingmen; Mr. Waddington, Mr. Kemp, and a number of 
other gentlemen, and that I merely called to pay my respects 
to him as representing the United States Government at 
Leicester, before I could congratulate him on the facility 
with which he represented the British Government at the 
same time, he resumed : 

*' Ah, yes ; very kind, but there is my friend Mr. Lorrimer, 
of Pool, Lorrimer &; Tabberer ; he is just full of this question. 
Free trade arguments ooze from Mr. Lorrimer like g-um from 
a spruce tree. Why, bless me, didn't they enlarge their 
factory because their New York agents had said a Demo- 
cratic Congress had been elected and the tariff would come 
down? But now it turns out that the tariff pn their class of 
goods (woolen hosiery) has gone up, and they say there is 
no dependence to be placed upon you Yankees anyhow ; and 
Pool, Lorrimer & Tabberer think that you are all wrong; 
but I think you are a deuced clever lot of dogs after all, 
and you look out for No. 1;" and then Mr. Haxby laughed 
a good hearty British guffaw. 

At this moment an aggressive gentleman with wiry hair, 
brown, heal thy -looking face and pepper-and-salt suit entered 
and proved to be the veritable Mr. Lorrimer. His line was 
woolen hosiery — his grievance was a simple one ; his logic 
pure Huddersfield. The newspaper cables and his agents 



LEICESTER— THE NEUTllAL MB. JIAXBY. 313 

had led him to believe the tariff on his goods was coming 
down, instead of which, after his preparing for a great 
increase in trade, it had gone up ; and that little which Pool, 
Lorrimer and Tabberer did have is now taken from them. 
True, his American agents now said: "Keep your powder 
dry, the next congress will be democratic and a bona fide 
reduction of from 25 to 50 per cent is promised beyond a 
peradventure, " but Mr. Lorrimer and the firm of Pool, Lor- 
rimer & Tabberer were in no frame of mind to regard with 
much favor what agents said, and so disgusted had they 
become with the whole poHcy of the United States, with its 
compound duties, with its promised decrease and actual 
increase, with one thing and another, that his firm was more 
than half incHned to let the United States go altogether. 

" The fact is," said Mr. Lorrimer, emphatically, "it don't 
pay to bother with it. We can make goods cheaper than 
you can, and give us half a chance and we will beat you out 
of your home markets ; but I do say that you don't give us 
half a chance. You are the richest country on earth, and 
why can't you give us a chance to share your wealth?" 

Though factories are being built and the hosiery trade is 
being concentrated in two or three large cities, the greater 
part of the hoisery of some of the largest firms is made by 
hand-power, and the workers employed in villages for twenty 
miles round Leicester and Nottingham. The work thus 
made is collected sometimes by the direct agents of the 
mills, but oftener by what may be called middle men, who 
receive a percentage for giving out the work to the workers 
and returning it to the mills. Perhaps no industry in the 
kingdom is so scattered, so far as the operatives are con- 
cerned, and hence the difficulty of giving the actual condi- 
tion in which they live and the average wages they eara. 
Female labor being much cheaper in Leicester than in 
Nottingham (owing to the lace industry in the latter town), 
many of the hosiery firms of Nottingham have their work 
done in Leicestershire. As I have shown, the Union and the 
manufacturers have agreed on a price list, and a Board of 



314 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 



Arbitration consisting of nine manufactures and nine work- 
men are supposed to settle disputes. How far this list is 
regarded I am unable to say, though the fact of copies being 
given for publication, when compared with the close manner 
in which all real useful information is kept from the public, 
even to a refusal of samples, would indicate that possessors 
of the price list are in the same advanced state of wisdom as 
to the real prices paid, and the real wages earned, as their 
less fortunate brethren who have them not. 

I have, however, obtained what I regard as a satisfactory 
statement from the manufacturers of Leicester, and I here- 
with append it, with the rates paid in Massachusetts : 



Description of 
Occupation. 



Plain woolen and cotton hosiery 

wide frames (band), men 

Rotary frames (power), men 

Circular frames (power), women . . 

Winding-machines (power), girls. . 

Winding-machines (hand), girls. . , 
Sewing-machines (power), women 

Seamers (women) 

Menders (women) 

Makers-up (women) , 

Dyers (foremen) , 

'* (laborers) , 

Yard hands 

Engineer , 



Rate of 

Wages per 

Week in 

England. 



|o 76 

7 25 

8 84 

1 56 

2 00 

3 00 



1 50 
3 36 
3 60 
9 60 

3 50 

4 50 
7 50 



Rate of 

Wages per 

Week in 

U.S. 



$8 94 
17 86 

7 00 

5 53 

6*49 

5'66 

5 76 

21 60 

8 00 
8 00 

17 14 



Excess of 
Wages in 
U. S. over 
England. 



$3 18 

10 61 
2 16 

Not fair 
comparison 

3*49 

i'64 

2 16 

11 90 
4 50 

3 50 
9 64 



The above table is made up from returns sent into the 
commercial department of the Board of Trade, London, by 
the manufacturers of Leicester ; and the United States from 
Table 1, page 423. Thirteenth Annual Report of Bureau of 
Statistics of Massachusetts. Both may be regarded as good 
authority. It will be seen from this that in some cases 
Massachusetts manufacturers pay 100 per cent more wages 



WOLVERHAMPTON— AN IRRITABLE SOLICITOR, 315 

to hosiery operatives than the manufacturers of Leicester and 
neighborhood, and that menders in England earn but 6s. or 
$1.50 a week — a lowness of wages unheard of in the United 
States. And yet it is a well-known fact that the lower 
grades of cotton and woolen hoisery sell at retail in the 
United States as cheaply as they do in England ; while the 
lower grades of cotton and mixed underwear are fully as 
cheap in the States as they are in England. 



LXXVI. 

Wolverhampton— An Irritable Solicitor. 

I often smile at the recollection of my first visit to the 
capital of the Black Country. I was accompanied by Henry 
W. Oliver, Jr., one of my colleagues on the tariff commis- 
sion, and we were investigating the Clap-GriflSth's process 
for the manufacture of steel, which he and Mr. James P. 
Witherow have since established so successfully in the 
United States. We were armed with cards of intro- 
duction from the United States Vice-Consul at Birming- 
ham to the United States Consular Agent at Wolver- 
hampton. Driving up from the station in an ancient-look- 
ing and musty-smelling- vehicle, called a **fly," we asked for 
the agent, and found he was an Enghsh country solicitor. 
Presenting our credentials, we were ushered into the pres- 
ence of the representative of the United States at Wolver- 
hampton. Mr. Nerve (I think that was his name) was one 
of those puffy, say-nothing-to-me-or-I'U-contradict-you sort 
of men. He had a snub nose, and a httle yellow hair, timor- 
ously creeping down each side of his face, which would have 
constituted mutton-chop whiskers had there been enough of 
it. He evidently felt the mighty dignity of representing 
the Republic, and therefore remained seated while Mr. Ohver 



316 BEE AD ^WINNERS ABROAD. 

and myself timidly approached. He did not ask us to sit 
down, but in a brusque way said : 

"' What have you come here for?" 

"' Partly out of curiosity, partly for pleasure, and perhaps 
incidentally to attend to a little business," calmly responded 
Mr. Ohver. 

^' Well, there's nothing to see," said the little snub-nosed 
soHcitor with the timorous yellow whiskers, and then, as an 
afterthought, he jerked out, " There's an old church." 

^' Very old?" said Mr. Oliver. 

*^ Yes, quite old," responded the solicitor, somewhat irri- 
tated. 

*^ Founded by a Saxon princess, I believe, before the Con- 
quest," said Mr. Oliver. *^My friend here is very fond of 
guide-books, and I learned this from one he bought this 
morning." 

^* Indeed," said the country solicitor. 

^* Yes, he is; guide-books," repea^ted Mr. Ohver. 

We were still standing before the consular agent, who 
had, we presume, read our credentials. We each, without 
being asked, took a chair, dragged it toward the desk of the 
mighty man, and sat down. 

*' Well, what do you want?" he said abruptly. 

Whereupon Mr. Oliver asked him for the address of a 
well-known firm of Wolverhampton, hundreds of whose in- 
voices we feel morally sure he must have had on file in his 
office. 

*' I don't know," he replied; 'Tm not expected to know 
the street and number of everybody who comes here to cer- 
tify to invoices, I am paid half a crown per invoice certified 
— little enough— and that is all I know about it." 

After a few more remarks about as prolific of results as 
the foregoing, we arose and said : 

^^ Good-day." 

To which, however, there was no response from the Wol- 
verhampton lawyer, and we left him to his own reflections. 
By the way, speaking of Wolverhampton lawyers reminds 



WOLVERHAMPTON— AN IRRITABLE SOLICITOR. 317 

one that it was one of this specie, named Haines, who led on 
a Wolverhampton mob in the middle of the last century 
when the excitement against Wesleyanism was so great. 
The followers of this solicitor marched through the town, 
singing: 

** Mr. Wesley's come to town 

To try to pull the churches down." 

After which they proceeded to the Wesley an Meeting- House 
and destroyed it. 

Our consular agent undoubtedly spoke the truth when he 
said there was nothing to see at Wolverhampton, though he 
need not have served it on ice. Narrow streets and small 
red-brick houses, slovenly women, standing in the door- 
ways, and dirty children sprawling in the gutters. Black 
mud in the wet weather, and black dust in dry weather, are 
perhaps the most noticeable features of the place. Wolver- 
hampton is the capital of the Black Country. On aU sides 
rolling-mills, steel-plants, wire-works, plate-mills, blast-fur- 
naces, and miscellaneous factories for making all kinds of 
metal ware. In olden times the wool trade flourished here, 
but that has long since departed. The town has been fa- 
mous for its locks, and two centuries or more ago turned out 
curious lock-work. It may now be regarded as the center 
of this trade. Chubb, Hunter and Price are among the well- 
known names, and the factors of Wolverhampton also pur 
chase the bulk of the locks made in the surrounding towns. 
The manufacture of japanned ware was first begun in Eng- 
land at Wolverhampton, and soon developed into an indus- 
try of importance. Watch-chains of steel were made here 
worth $100 each, and buckles from $50 to $75 a pair. A 
sword hilt of steel has been made in this town and sold for 
$1,500 to a nobleman, the workman making it working 
steadily on it for three years. Galvanized goods, iron tubes 
edge-tools, hurdles and aU sorts of manufacturers of brass 
are carried on here. 

Whatever else may be said of the discomforts of Wolver- 



318 BBEAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

hampton, no one can complain of the hotel. King Charles 
I. went down there in 1645 to rally the Eoyahsts of Wolver- 
hampton, and stayed, it is said, at the same hotel, The Star 
and Garter. It is none the worse, however, for that. The 
cooking is equal to any hotel in England. The building 
itseK is a fine specimen of Tudor architecture. Here, in 
spite of dust, slush, smoke, the noise of machinery, and the 
incivility of the consular agent, one can enjoy the good 
things of this life. 

The present visit to Wolverhampton was made in company 
with a prominent Birmingham editor, and in response to a 
special request from several correspondents at home to in- 
quire about the ^' basic process" of making steel on the 
Thomas-Gilchrist process. We found the basic steel mills 
about two miles from Wolverhampton, and when through 
the rain and slush we had finally reached them, discovered 
they were in no condition for visitors. The plant had been 
pretty nearly demolished by the bursting of some boilers 
and would not be at work again for nearly three months. 
However, Mr. Percy C. Gilchrist was there (his colleague, 
Mr. Sidney G. Thomas, having recently died) and was ex- 
ceedingly kind in imparting the desired information. 

Both of the inventors of this process were young men, Mr. 
Thomas being thirty-four at the time of his death, and Mr. 
Gilchrist, judging from his appearance, not much, if any, 
over thirty. He has a striking head and face, a well devel- 
oped brain, and is evidently a man of ability and indomitable 
perseverance. When Mr. Thomas commenced his experi- 
ments his friend, Mr. Gilchrist, was a metallurgical chemist 
in South Wales. These experiments were designed to elim- 
inate phosphorus in the Bessemer converter, and were be- 
gun, Mr. Gilchrist told me, in 1875. The results were highly 
encouraging, though not entirely conclusive as to the com- 
mercially complete purification being possible, owing to the 
imperfect character of the appliances at command. Two 
years later, with a lining composed of limestone and silicate 
of soda, much better results were arrived at, and with these 



WOLVERHAMPTON'— AN IRRITABLE SOLICITOR. 319 

results apparatus to carry the experiments further were 
constructed. 

Having demonstrated the practicability of getting rid of the 
enemy that had more or less baffled the ingenuity and re- 
sources of all the rest of the world up to that time, Mr. Thomas, 
in 1878, communicated his discovery to the Iron and Steel In- 
stitute of England in a paper giving fully the results of these 
experiments, with analysis. Mr. Thomas was present and 
modestly stated that he had succeeded in removing the phos- 
phorus entirely by the Bessemer converter. The statement 
ment of this unknown youth was sneered at. How could 
he solve a problem which the leaders of metallurgy had 
pronounced well nigh impossible. So little importance was 
attached to his statement, and so little was it believed in, 
that the paper was scarcely noticed and was left unread till 
the spring meeting in London in 1879. 

At last Mr. E. Windsor Richards, manager of Bolckow. 
Vaughn & Co., of Middlesborough, became interested in the 
process. He had met the young inventor at Creusct, in 
France, and later in Paris, and was struck with his defini- 
tion of the discovery. The principle thus stated has been 
found incapable of a more exact definition. 

*'It is," said Mr. Thomas, ^'on the production of a basic 
earthy slag by the addition of large quantities of calcareous 
basis, and without excessive waste of lining and metal, and 
the constructien of a durable basic lining that we venture to 
think the economic solution of the phosphorus problem 
depends." When in Middlesborough I had the pleasure of 
meeting Mr. Richards, and I reproduce now his own words 
at that time in speaking of the part he took in the introduc- 
tion of this process, that is likely to revolutionize the steel 
trade. 

^^ We very quickly erected a pair of thirty-cwt. converters 
at Middlesborough, but were unable for a long time to try 
the process, owing to the difficulties experienced in making 
basic bricks for lining the converters and making the basic 
bottom. The difficulties arose principally from the enor- 



320 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD, 

mous shrinkage of the magnetism limestone when being 
burnt in the kiln with an up draught and of the failure of the 
ordinary bricks of the kiln to withstand the very high tem- 
perature necessary for efficient burning. The difficulties 
were one by one surmounted, and at last we lined up the 
converters with basic bricks, and April 4, 1879, made two 
successful operations." 

'' What was the result ?" 

*^The news of this success," said Mr. Eichards, with a 
smile of satisfaction, ^'spread rapidly far and wide, and 
Middlesborough was soon besieged by the combined forces 
of Belgium, France, Eussia, Austria, and the United States. 
A few hundred- weights of samples of basic bricks, molton 
metal used and steel produced, were taken away for search- 
ing analysis at home." 

In 1878, the production of first-class steel from phosphoric 
ores was nil; in 1884, by means of the Thomas-Gilchrist pro- 
cess, 864,000 tons of steel were made in Europe, every country 
being enabled by it to convert its own impure ores into steel. 



LXXVII. 

Interview With Percy Gilchrist. 

**It was early realized," said Mr. Gilchrist, ^'by my 
cousin, Mr. Thomas, that as the supply of pure ore in the 
world is limited, and the demand for steel an ever gi^owing 
and widening one, it could only be met by adding the unlim- 
ited phosphoric ores to our sources of steel." 

*' It will enable, then, each country to utilize its own ores." 
''As you say, the effect of the process will be to make each 
countiy able to make steel from its own ores. For example, 
if they be non-phosphoric, by the acid process ; if phosphoric, 
by the basic ; the one process will not oust the other ; it will 
merely help to find material to meet the annual increase in 
steel consumption." 



INTERVIEW WITH PEBGY OILCHBIST, 321 

The practical effect of the basic invention in England is to 
make available 15,000,000 tons of ore heretofore useless for 
steel-making. In England, the only districts supplying good 
Bessemer ores in any quantity are those of West Cumber- 
land and Northwest Lancashire, which have never in any 
one year produced more than 3,000,000 out of a total output 
of 18,000,000 tons for the kingdom. It was equally— nay 
even more — important to Germany and some other countries 
heretofore dependent on foreign and short-lived suppHes of 
raw material for their steel. 

By the ordinary Bessemer process it is impossible to make 
good steel from phosphoric pig, as no phosphorus is removed 
by this process ; and, as also good steel must practically con- 
tain no phosphorus, the most important part of the basic 
process is the lining of the converter. But, as Mr. Gilchrist 
said to me, *' Curiously enough, although it is so absolutely 
essential to have it, its action on each charge of phosphoric 
pig is purely permissive, as it allows the Hme added with 
each charge to remain unacted upon by the lining, and 
enables it to devote its energies to absorbing the phosphoric 
acid that is produced by blowing air through phosphoric pig 
under such conditions.'' 

The whole process as carried on at the South Staffordshire 
Works under the direction of Mr. Gilchrist was explained to 
me by that gentleman himself, and as far as I could judge 
the secret of success very largely Hesin the basic lining. At 
these works they make use of specially prepared dolomitic 
lime; a lime is thus made that resists the atmosphere, so 
that it will not fall to powder during a space of three months, 
enabhng a stock of it to be kept. They are also enabled to 
make it from a material sufficiently hard for a durable 
hning. I saw this lime in procsss of making in the sheds. 

*^We caU this," said Mr. Gilchrist, taking up a sample 
and handling it to me, '* shrunk lime, because it is totally 
different to what we generally know as lime, and, because 
in its conversion from dolomitic Hmestone into its present 
form it has lost 50 per cent both in volume and height." 
21 



322 BREAD -WINNEBS ABROAD. 

*'Howis it made?" 

** It is made in three ways: 1. The dolomitic limestone is 
ground up and made into roughly shaped bricks ; these are 
fired in kilns having a basic bottom, with a down draught 
and coal fired. 2. The dolomitic Hmestonein blocks as they 
come from the quarry are placed in kilns with a down 
draught and gas fired; this is the Creusot and German 
method. 3. The dolomitic limestone, as it comes from the 
quarry, or roughly broken, is charged into a basic-lined 
cupola much in the same way as you charge pig iron into 
an acid or ordinary cupola. The shrunk material is taken 
from the cupola through rakingout doors at the bottoms 
every two hours, the coke used being thirteen to sixteen 
hundred weight per ton of shrunk material made." 

'' How is this shrunk material mixed?" 

** However it is made it is ground up and mixed, not with 
water, but with hot boiled tar, sufficient being used to make 
the^matter run solid under a red-hot rammer, or sufficient 
to make slurry, if the latter be required." 

^* How are the converters lined?" 

*' There are four ways," said Mr. Gilchrist; '* 1. Simply 
ramming round a wooden or iron core, and drying the lining 
with a coke fire after the core has been removed. 2. With 
the original basic bricks, using ground-up waste bricks, 
mixed with tar, for the joints. 3. With coked basic bricks. 
4. With slurry. This is for relining a worn-out converter." 

^^ Which is the best method?" 

^^ All of the above methods are good and have their par- 
tisans." 

*' Having got your vessel ready for work, what next?" 

** Into the converter the necessary amount of lime is shot; 
the amount depends upon the amount of phosphorus and 
silicon in the pig, and is left to the judgment of the blower. 
As soon as the lime is hot the charge of phosphoric pig is 
run into the converter. At first what silicon there is in the 
I)ig (and there is very much less than in ordinary Bessemer 
pig) passes away, by the action of the blast, into slag ; then 



INTERVIEW WITH PERCY GILCHRIST, 223 

carbon bums with a large and luminous flame, occupying 
some ten minutes ; during this time manganese is also being 
formed into slag, but our friend phosphorus, up to the end 
of the carbon period, has only been slightly attacked; 
directly, however, the carbon has all gone the phosphorus 
begins to pass into the slag, and in so passing produces great 
heat, sufficient heat to destroy itself, as the heat it produces 
is sufficient to keep the first product, namely, burnt wrought 
iron, as liquid as water." 

^' How do you know when all the phosphorus is removed?" 
*'The blower, after a certain number of seconds of after- 
blow (after-blow is that part of the operation after the car- 
bon has all gone, and is characteristic of the process) takes 
a sample, and, after having hammered it out in its heat into 
a flat disc, whilst still red-hot plunges it into cold water, 
and at once either breaks or bends it. From the appearance 
of the fracture it requires only common sense and experience 
to ascertain whether the phosphorous has been practically 
removed." 

Mr. Gilchrist showed me a beautifully wrought casket 
which had been presented to Mr. Thomas by Austrian man- 
ufacturers, made out of basic steel. It looked almost like 
bronze work, and forcibly illustrated what can be done with 
the basic process in the direction of soft steel. The Stafford- 
shire works will utilize furnace cinder as a raw material. 
The story of this new industry and its gi^owth throughout 
Europe in five years, is more like a. romance than the plain 
statement of facts, though one can not relate it without 
feeling a tinge of sorrow that the young government official, 
with no metallurgical training or experience, and not time 
to devote to scientific research save the evenings after the 
day's work was over, who made this remarkable discovery, 
should have been cut off without realizing the reward of his 
careful reasoning, indomitable energy, and perseverance. 



324 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

LXXVIII. 

York.— Gray- Walled and Ancient. 

Next to the tariff the inter State commerce question will 
take precedence of all others in the Forty-ninth Congress. 
The defeat of the Eeagan bill in the Senate, the passage of 
the Ciillom bill, and the subsequent appointment, on motion 
of Senator Cullom, by the Senate of a special committee to 
sit during their recess to take testimony and make a 
thorough inquiry into this question, indicates beyond a 
doubt that our more conservative legislators are determined 
to obtain exact information on this most comphcated sub- 
ject before taking the first step toward the control of inter- 
State commerce by the National Government. One cannot 
aspire to throw much light on this complicated question in 
one or two letters written as it were *'on the wing "and 
with hardly a reference book at hand, written, too, in gray- 
walled ancient York, inside the walls of which city one is 
not likely to lay up much inspiration for the living issues of 
the day, though outside its walls he will certainly find one 
of the finest, if not the finest, railway station in the world. 
There are memories, and romance, and poetry enough clus- 
tering around this old town for a letter, but I fancy it had 
better be left for others, for more picturesque and poetic 
pens than mine. Not that I by any means admit there is 
no poetry in these living issues of the day, for has not the 
poet sang of railroads : 

**No poetry in railroads; foolish thought 
Of a dull brain, to no fine music wrought; 
By mammon dazzled; though the people prize 
The gold untold; yet shall not we despise 
The triumphs of our time, or fail to see 
Of pregnant mind, the fruitful progeny 
Ushering the daylight of the world's new morn." 



TOBK— GRAY -WALLED AND ANCIENT. 325 

Common and familiar instruments of our business and 
pleasure as they have become to us, railways may be de- 
scribed with liberal truth as the most striking manifestation 
of the power of man over the material order of the universe. 
The mightiest monuments of classical or pre-classical times, 
it has been truly said, are but feeble triumphs of human 
skill beside the work of the railway engineer, who has 
covered the face of the earth with iron roads, spanning val- 
leys and piercing mountains, and traversed by fiery steeds 
fleeter than ever sped through poetic dream or necromantic 
legend. It may hkewise be said of the history of railroads 
both in England and our own country that it is a history in 
which consummate commercial sagacity and far-seeing 
policy are found side by side with reckless waste and popular 
madness, in which the genius, the resources, the virtues of 
human nature, in an almost heroic degree are in the closest 
juxtaposition with the lowest depths of folly, futility, and 
fraud. No chapter in the world's progress is more fascinat- 
ing, more wonderful: 

* ' Link town to town ; and in these iron bands 
Unite the strange and oft-embattled lands." 

During my stay in England this time I have met and con- 
versed with many of the best informed and most distin- 
guished railroad experts in the kingdom, and, indeed, it was 
an invitation to meet and dine with the directors of the 
Northeastern Railway Company that brought me to this 
city, and subsequently suggested the idea of devoting this 
letter to a subject v/hich is second only to that of the tariff 
in the amount of public interest it commands in the United 
States, 



326 BREAD 'WINNERS ABROAD. 

LXXIX. 

York. — The Eailroad Question. 

The various ways governments have sought to secure for 
the people the fulfillment of corporate obligations and the 
correction of corporate abuses have been classified as fol- 
lows: 

(A) The policy of non-interference ; (b) specific and penal 
legislation; (c) delegation of the rate-fixing power to com- 
missioners ; (d) the continental system of direct state control 
through the executive ; (e) competitive, partial state owner- 
ship ; (f) investigation through a Board of Railroad Commis- 
sioners, and the enforcement of its conclusions and recom- 
mendations through enlightened public opinion. 

I have in a previous article (published in the Philadelphia 
Press of Dec. 23, 1884) endeavored to trace the causes, char- 
acter and effect of the attempts at State control, in each of 
these directions, as may be gathered from the experiences 
of twenty -nine of the States of the Union, which in one 
form or another have estabUshed railroad commissions and 
have tried to solve the railroad problem for themselves. 
Excepting only the continental system, each of the six 
methods has been tried by some State or States within the 
Union, and a careful study of the relative amount of success 
attending each method will aid in solving the problem of 
the character of the National control, for a large majority 
in both houses of Congress favor legislation of some sort. 
The success of penal and other severe methods of deaHng 
with railroads has not in my opinion been beneficial enough 
to warrant the National Government in proceeding in this 
direction. The delegation of rate-fixing power to commis- 
sions has proved an improvement upon specific and penal 
methods, but thorough investigation and enforcement of 
recommendations through enlightened public opinion, it 



YORK— THE RAILBOAD QUESTION. 327 

must be admitted, has accomplished, much good for the 
people. 

The Senate Committee on Transportation Eoutes to the 
Sea-board has already laid the foundation for the most 
thorough inquiry into this question ever prosecuted. It 
is greatly to be hoped that this committee will not be con- 
tented with taking two or three volumes of testimony 
without making a careful examination of all the railroad 
literature, in shape of reports, now extant, and without hav- 
ing some definite line of statistical work mapped out. 

There is to-day going on in England a struggle between 
these powerful railroad monopoHes and the public second 
only to the one which occupied so much time of the last 
session of Congress in our own country, and bids fair to oc- 
cupy still more time in the next. England started with the 
railroad question very much as we did by supposing that 
the interest of the companies was to a considerable extent 
the interest of the pubhc, and that competition would 
eventually regulate this business of transportation, so that 
the pubhc could secure the best possible service for the least 
cost. The best minds of the country, including Mr. Glad- 
stone himself (who was for years chairman of the secret 
committee appointed as far back as 1844, and which made 
no less than five reports on the subject), and finally came 
to the conclusion that regulation was to be depended on 
rather than competition. The outcome of this report was 
the passage of a somewhat crude law relating to rates and 
fares, and empowering the State after a certain time to buy 
any railway. A board was created at this time subordinate 
to the Board of Trade of the United Kingdom. It accom- 
plished but Httle and was abohshed. 

In 1846 the railroad question again came up in England, 
and another special committee was appointed to take testi- 
mony and report. The outcome of this was the railway 
commission of that year, appointed to have supervision of 
railways and canals, with full power to enforce such regu- 
lations as may from time to time appear indispensable for 



328 BBEAD-WINNEBS ABBOAD. 

the accommodation and general interest of the public. The 
President of this commission was paid $10,000, and the two 
other paid members each $7,500 per annum. The next year 
the railroad companies consolidated and formed what is 
known as the "Railway Clearing House, "something similar 
to our Trunk Line Commission, excepting that in 1850 the 
English association was legalized, whereas our own commis- 
sion never has had legal existence nor legal power to enforce 
its decision or agreements between companies comprising 
the association. 

The Railway Commission enjoyed but a short existence 
and was abolished in 1851, the duties being transferred to 
the Board of Trade. In 1854 the canal and railway traffic 
act passed, which compelled every company to afford to the 
public, in respect both of goods and of passengers, the full 
advantage of convenient interchange from one system of 
railway to another; and, second, that every company 
should make equal charges under the same circumstances. 
No special tribunal was appointed to hear cases that might 
arise from infraction of this law and the injured party 
could only appeal to the Court of Common Pleas. 

Next came the famous commission with the Duke of 
Devonshire as Chairman. They decided that it was not 
expedient for the government to avail itself of its reserved 
right to purchase railways. That Parliament should not 
interfere with the incorporation and financial affairs of 
railway companies, but limit its own action to regulating 
the construction of the line and the relations between the 
public and companies leaving the financial affairs- to the 
*^ Joint Stock Companies' Act," under which the companies 
were created ; that railway companies should be compelled 
to run at least two trains a day for third-class passengers, 
and that legislation abolishing the freedom which railway 
companies enjoy of charging what sum they deem expedient 
within their maximum rates was inexpedient even if it were 
practical. 

In 1872 the Marquis of Salisbury and some other eminent 



TOBK—TEE RAILROAD QUESTIOK 329 

Peers and Commoners made an attempt to solve the rail- 
road problem. This committee, like the ones that preceded 
it, dealt freely enough with glittering generahties, but was 
sparing enough when it came to definite propositions. It 
decided among other things that equal mileage rates are 
inexpedient. That there should be publicity of rates and 
tolls, and that there was need of a new tribunal, consisting 
of three railway and canal comissioners, for a careful and 
through supervision of the transportation interests of the 
kingdom, with authority to enforce the laws relating to 
those matters, to hear complaints and settle disputes, and 
with further duty of assisting and advising Parhament in 
railway legislation. 

In 1873 the so-caUed ^' Eegulation of Eailways Act " was 
passed and another commission appointed consisting of three 
persons, one of whose members must be a person of experi- 
ence in railway management, and another experienced in 
law. The object of this court was to counteract the effect, 
of the monopoly acquired by railway companies. This com- 
mission has undoubted power, and exercises it in aU matters 
relating to the construction of the road, especially with 
regard to matters of pubUc safety. It goes further than 
some of our New England commissions in this direction, 
and deals with the right of this or that town to necessary 
accommodations, better waiting-rooms, platforms, and cov- 
ered spaces. They have also the power of arbitrating both 
between different companies and between the companies 
and the public ; the complaints of one trader as to preferen- 
tial rates or superior facilities accorded to another; the 
demand of one company for running powers over the lines 
of another ; these are the kind of cases in which the inter- 
vention of the commission is invoked. 

What strikes me with amazement is the little business 
this commission does. So far as salary is voucher for re- 
spectabiUty or talents these gentlemen ought to stand high, 
for each of them is paid $15, 000 a year. They issue annually 
a report of their decisions. I have before me the seventh re- 



330 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

port of this railway commission, which contains nine judg- 
ments delivered during the year, these judgments are 
made up of local complaints of insufficient convenience 
afforded by railways, the grievances of manufactory 
firms against railways, and disputes between railways 
themselves. I was even told by one of England's most emi- 
nent railway men, whose name is well known in the United 
States were I at liberty to motion it, that there is but little 
confidence felt in the present commission ; that they have 
done nothing in the way of business, and although they 
advertise for business in the Railway Times^ judging from 
the reports, they get very little. 

These advertisements, one of which I have seen, are 
decidedly novel, and are like a court of justice tooting for 
business. In the preamble it states that whereas by the act 
of 1873 this and that are illegal acts, and calls upon any one 
who may know of railway companies transgressing these 
laws to at once inform the *' commission at their chambers 
and the commission will forthwith make due inquiry into 
the matter represented to them." 

Judging from the calm -looking, fifty-paged, blue-covered 
folio annually issued by these highly respectable and well- 
paid old gentlemen at a cost of about $50,000 per annum to 
the tax-payers, one would think that the railroad question 
had not only been solved, but serenely laid upon the shelf 
in England as one of the questions a generation now rapidly 
passing to the grave had fought over and settled. 

Far from it. The railroad question is as much of a living 
issue in England at the present moment as it is in the 
United States. Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Card- 
well, the Duke of Devonshire, and Lord Salisbury have all in 
their time taken a hand in it and established some princi- 
ples, but the railroad interests are getting too powerful for 
the States, as I think was clearly shown in the last select 
committee appointed to inquire into the railway rates and 
fares and the working of the act under which the present 
commission was appointed. The ink of the three ponderous 



TOBK^THE RAILROAD QUESTION, 331 

volumes of this report, which was only compiled in 1882, 
is hardly dry, yet Mr. Chamberlain talks of another royal 
commission composed of the present railway commissioners, 
two representatives from the railways, and two from 
the trading community. 

This would seem folly while the abuses disclosed by the 
select committee of 1882 remain unchecked. There are no 
less than 4,000 separate acts of ParHament relating to rail- 
way companies, the London and Northwestern Eailway 
alone having eighty-two separate acts. It is impossible 
for shippers, to say nothing of the public, to know what is 
a legal and what is an illegal charge in the midst of such 
judicial chaos as this. In the meantime the railways 
systematically overcharge, especially on freight, and this 
is done secretly by wrong classification, and openly by 
demanding the illegal burden of '^terminal charges." 
Moreover they designedly carry the products of other 
nations cheaper than home products; they discriminate 
* against one port and in favor of another, and give one 
locality better rates than another much more favorably 
situated ; they buy up competitive canals, cease to work 
them, or allow them to fall into disrepute, that in due 
time they may wring a few more shillings per ton out of 
the hapless shipper. They confer together to keep up 
charges and levy those charges without the shghtest re- 
ference to acts of Parhament. These misdemeanors against 
the body poUtic they stand convicted of in the evidence 
which is before me in the testimony taken by the Select 
Committee of 1882. 

In spite of this legislation, covering, as I have shown, a 
period of forty years — in which over 4000 acts of one kind 
and another have been passed with a view of fixing rates — 
no general principle has been adopted for fixing rates on 
any railway in the country. The charge for conveyance, 
any railroad expert will inform you, was such a sum, within 
the power of the company, as they thought the traffic would 
bear, having regard to competition, both of other means of 



332 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

conveyance and of other districts or markets, and without 
reference to the cost to the company of performing the ser- 
vice. 

Thus we find, on the confession of the managers them- 
selves, rates are fixed in England on no intelligible principle, 
but arbitrarily at what the railway managers think the traf- 
fic will bear. 

This report, and indeed all the subsequent British reports 
on the subject, pronounce most decidedly against '* equal 
mileage" i. e., a charge for each class of goods and passen- 
gers in proportion to the distance for which they are carried. 
This is the fundamental principle, I beheve, of the Eeagan 
bill, and the objections urged against such a proposal in 
England will be of interest to American readers. 

It would, the committee rightly urged, prevent railway 
companies from lowering their fares and rates so as to com- 
pete with traffic by sea, by river, by canal, or by the shorter 
or otherwise cheaper railways, and would thus deprive the 
pubUc of the benefit of competition and the company of * 
a legitimate source of profit. 

It would pi:event railway companies from making per- 
fectly fair arrangements for carrying at a lower rate than 
usual goods bought in larger and constant quantities or for 
carrying for long distances at a lower rate than for short 
distances. 

It would compel a company to carry for the same rate 
over a line which has been very expensive in construction, 
or wliich from gradients or otherwise is very expensive in 
working, at the same rate at which it carries over less ex- 
pensive lines. In short, to impose equal mileage on compa- 
nies would be to deprive the public of the benefit of much of 
the competition which now exists, or has existed, to raise 
charges in many cases and to perpetuate monopolies. And, 
moreover, I have found by a careful study of the testimony 
before the English commission, and by reading the speeches 
in the House of Kepresentatives last winter, that the sup- 
porters of equal mileage, when pressed, often really mean 



YORK— THE BAILED AB QUESTION. 333 

not that the rates they pay themselves are too high, but that 
the rates that others pay are too low. 

While the value of equal mileage, I think, cannot be ad- 
mitted as a principle, the farmers and traders both in this 
country and the United States are entitled to some kind of 
equaUty of charge. Enghsh farmers complain that im- 
ported agricultural produce is given bounty over home 
produce by being carried at a lower rate ; that foreign corn 
and meat are carried from Liverpool to London for less than 
Enghsh corn and meat ; that American cattle are conveyed 
from Glasgow to London for less than Scotch cattle ; that 
cattle landed in Newcastle are carried inland for less than 
cattle' reared in Northumberland and Durham, that foreign 
fruit and hops are carried to Boulogne or Flushing to Lon- 
don for less than fruit and hops from Ashford or Sitting- 
bourne. Wire manufacturers complain that Belgium wire 
and other goods are brought from Belgium to Birmingham 
for less than similar goods are charged from Birmingham to 
London. Makers of chemicals complain that the coal which 
they use is made to pay higher rates than the coal sent past 
their works to Liverpool for exportation to their foreign 
rivals, and Limerick complains that foreign bacon and pro- 
visions are carried from Limerick at much less than is 
charged for Limerick bacon over the same route to the same 
port. Bradford complains that the export trade from both 
Manchester and Bradford enjoys rates which are preferen- 
tial as compared with those for the home consumption. 

In short, go where you will in England you hear bitter 
complaints against the railways from farmers, manufactur- 
ers, and from the Chambers of Commerce and Boards of 
Trade of the several cities and towns. 

The only remedy for this condition of affairs yet proposed 
is a tribunal with full power to determine each case on 
its merits, and decide how far these differential charges 
constitute ^* undue preferences" as the English call it, ^'un- 
just discrimination" as we term it. The concluding remarks 
on Enghsh railways must be left for another letter, as I 



334 BREAD WINNERS ABROAD. 

purpose therein to show the relative rates of freight and 
passenger charges in England and other European countries, 
and bring out some other facts of interest and value to 
Amrican readers. 



LXXX. 

Crewe— ** Thank ye, Sir." 



-^j 



Between 7,000 and 8,000 hands are employed in this town 
in the shops of the London and Northwestern Eailway 
Company. There are rolling mills, locomotive works, rail 
mills, fitter shops, carpenter shops, and other allied indus- 
tries. It is essentially a railway town. It is, moreover, a 
modem town, and with some modifications, a coketown. 
The bouses and mills are not so high as in the typical Eng- 
lish coketowns. The workmen hve in rows of small choco- 
late colored brick houses, which run with great regularity 
on each side of narrow but clean streets. The railway shops 
are certainly among the finest of the kind in the world, and 
as I was furnished with introductions to some of the man- 
agers by our consul at Liverpool, Mr. Packard, every op- 
portunity was afforded to visit the works. There is little, 
however, of interest in this town to American readers, and 
I shall make my visit to it an excuse for continuing the topic 
of English railways and their management, weaving some 
of the important facts obtained here into the letter as we 
proceed. 

In my last letter was given a brief history of railway 
legislation in England for the last forty years. It was 
shown that in spite of all manner of ratefixing legis- 
lation and a multiplicity of special acts dealing with 
rates or charges and a commission whose members were 
each paid a salary of $15,000 per annum, the railroads 
continued to overcharge, combine, buy up canals, to un- 



CEEWE—'' THANK TE, SIB.'' 335 

justly discriminate against certain ports and towns and 
against the home producer, and in favor of the foreign pro- 
ducer. That though a tribunal to judge upon these com- 
plaints was constantly in session, and even advertising for 
business, they did little more than Vermont, or Rhode Is- 
land, or Maine railroad commission, and have never exerted 
the influence , for example, that our Massachusetts Board of 
Commissioners have, though apparently in some directions 
exercising greater powers. The fact is, the commission has 
no data with which to determine charges of undue prefer- 
ences, for the simple reason that the English railway com- 
panies have never been compelled to consent to an inquiry 
into the cost of transportation on their lines. When in- 
formation of this kind has been demanded they either give 
an evasive reply or flatly assert that it is impossible to dis- 
tinguish the cost of the various classes of traffic. This 
question of cost Hes at the root of the matter, and here the 
United States is ahead of England, for our various State 
commissioners, the inquiry prosecuted by the census of 1880, 
which I had charge of, combined with a strong public opin 
ion, have induced many railroads to give precisely the class 
of statistics needed to show what it costs them to carry all 
kinds of traffic, what profit these severally yield, and so on. 

In all these matters I find the English statesmen groping 
entirely in the dark, and the railroad managers themselves 
in an advanced state of ignorance on the v/hole subject 
that would be grotesque did it not flavor of an actual desire 
to mystify the public, not to say mislead. 

The American reader and especially those who have op- 
posed Senator Cullom's commission bill will urge that the 
failure of the Enghsh Railway Commission is not a cheer- 
ing fact for us on the threshold of a similar experiment, as 
it were. The present mode of enforcing the orders of the 
Railway Commissioners in England is entirely unsatisfactory 
and they should have conferred upon them all the powers 
and incidentals of a court of record. 

Said Sir Edward Watkins, " The owners of $3,500,000,000 



336 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

of property are entitled to as high a tribunal as any portion 
of her Majesty's subjects." It is to be hoped Senator Cul- 
lom will bear in mind that the owners of $7,000,000,000 of 
property have similar rights in the United States; that his 
proposed court must be of the very highest order. Impor- 
tant matters that will fix the law and practice aU over the 
Union will come up before this court, and one recognized 
appeal to a higher court would be just and satisfactory. 
They should in fact have power to enforce the interests of 
the public and to give redress in any cases of illegal charges. 
The present English commission is a high-priced farce, with 
neither the confidence of the public nor the respect of the 
railroad companies, and I hope those who have charge of 
the inter-State commerce in the Senate wiU study the his- 
tory of the English commission and look over its work be- 
fore they recommend another commission bill, that they 
may avoid the danger with which it is now beset. 

England has interested in her railways over $3,500,000,000 
of capital; she has nearly 20,000 miles of track, carries an- 
nually over 600,000,000 passengers, and employs in round 
figures as engine-drivers, stokers, guards, flagmen, and 
other officials (other than clerks), 140,000. On the other 
hand the United States has 120,000 miles of track which, 
with the rolling stock, buildings, etc., is estimated at a value 
of $7,000,000,000 or double that of England, carrying 312,686,- 
641 passengers, and employing in round figures 420,000 per- 
sons in various capacities. The pay of those engaged in 
railroading in England will not average half what it is for 
the same class of employment in the United States. The 
Tenth Census Volume on Railroads shows that the average 
earnings of this class of the population (not including officers) 
in the United States is $492 per annum. Three-fourths of 
those employed in England, numbering probably 105,000, 
earn less than $5 a week, or $250 a year — a large proportion 
of this number do not make over $4 a week, or $200 a year. 

Americans traveling in England have observed the civility 
of the railroad porters, who as a rule run along the platform 



CREWE— '' THANK TE, SIR:* 337 

as the train steams into the station, open the carriage door 
and volunteer to carry your luggage and parcels to the cabs. 
They have also observed the alacrity with which these por- 
ters pocket any small change the traveler may be willing to 
give as a tip with the characteristic touch of the hat and 
*^ Thank ye, sir!"^ 

I have conversed with dozens of these men and find their 
earnings vary from as low as 14s. ($5. 50 per week in country 
towns to £1 ($5) per week in important places. 

*^ How do you hve on such a salary," I said to a Great 
Eastern Company porter. 

^^ Well, it is very 'ard, sir, but we pick up a Httle, such 
as gentlemen like yourself feels hke giving us." 

*'How much does that average a week?" 

** It is very uncertain. You see as a rule we don't get any 
silver unless it be three-penny bits. We 'aven't much 
American travel on this line, and tupence or threpence in 
coppers is looked upon as a good enough tip by most pas- 
sengers, and of late years only a few gives that. And right 
glad we are to get even that, sir." 

I have often noticed when traveling with Americans that 
they dislike to offer respectable-looking men, as most of 
these porters are, ^' coppers," and generally give them six- 
pence, or even a shilling, whereas the porters would be 
grateful enough for a few spare pennies. 

The guards, of whom there are something like 10,000 in 
England, are only paid from $6 to $7 a week. These officials 
take the place of our conductors, and their hearts, or rather 
their hands, are as open to melting charity— or I should say 
'*tips" — as he of the thin, dark green corduroy suit and 
silver buttons who handles the luggage for threepence. 
The guard's size is about a shilling to his own countrymen, 
and half a crown {62i cents) to Americans. For this smn 
he will not infrequently give you a carriage from Liverpool 
to London all to yourself, or secure your party from intru- 
sion. He will come to the window, radiant with smiles, and 
ask if *' All is right, sir? Shall I change your hot- water tin, 



338 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



sir?" or in the most saccharine voice tell you ** The train will 
remain here ten minutes, sir, if you'd like to get out and 
stretch your legs, sir." The luckless passengers who fee not 
the guard may be packed in like sardines in a box, but the 
magic words ^ ^ engaged " will secure the man who has ' ' fixed 
the guard " a compartment to himself, especially at night. 
The pittance that these men work for is enough to obliterate 
their independence and compel them to accept the smallest 
bribes in return for personal favoritism. 



LXXXI. 

Derby.— Comparative Cost of Traveling. 

Third-class traveling is increasing in England at a more 
rapid rate than first and second, and from this source 
the railroads are reaping the greater percentage of their 
receipts. The Midland Company has aboUshed second-class 
compartments and the results would indicate that the step 
has paid. Under the old system of three classes in 1874 this 
road carried something over 26,000,000 passengers and the 
receipts were Is. lid. per passenger; in 1880 the total num- 
ber carried was 28,000,000 and the receipts Is. 2id. per 
passenger. The following table, whioh I have compiled from 
official returns, shows the increase of third-class and decrease 
of second and first-class travel: 



Year. 


Per Cent 

1st Class. 


Per Cent 
2d Class. 


Per Cent 
3d Class. 


Total 
Per Cent. 


1850 


12.18 

12.31 

9.36 

5.94 


39.08 
31.54 
23.12 

10.71 


48.74 
56.15 
67.52 
83.35 


100 


I860 


100 


1870 


100 


1880 


100 







DERBY— COMPARATIVE COST OF TRAVELING, 339 



The increase of travel of late years, as will be seen, has 
been very largely in third-class traffic. Railway managers 
have been compelled to furnish better accommodations and 
the third-class carriage of to-day is better than the second- 
class carriage was fifteen years ago, and on some roads as 
good as the old first-class carriages. Added to this England 
is becoming more democratic, and I have met officers of 
both service, substantial agriculturalists, m.inor dignitaries 
of the church, well-to-do-tradesmen, commercial travelers 
and a host of other quite agreeable and intelligent travehng 
companions in third-class carriages. The following is a 
comparative statement showing the mileage rates for the 
conveyance of passengers in the under-mentioned European 
countries. I have used the English penny (2 cents) and 
100th of a penny : 



Countries. 



Norway 

Belgium 

Denmark 

Germany, Southern. 

Sweden , 

Greece... 

Germany, Northern 

Switzerland , 

Netherlands 

Portugal 

Italy 

Roumania 

Austria 

France 

Spain 

Hungary 

Great Britain 

Russia 

Turkey 



First 


Second 


Class. 


Class. 


1.08 


.65 


1.16 


1.04 


1.50 


1.04 


1.55 


1.06 


1.55 


1.08 


1.55 


.93 


1.55 


1.16 


1.64 


1.16 


1.64 


1.31 


1.64 


1.29 


1.73 


1.42 


1.73 


1.34 


1.89 


1.42 


1.93 


1.44 


2.01 


1.55 


2.07 


1.56 


2.21 


1.60 


2.29 


1.68 


3.00 


2.20 



Third 
Class. 



.34 
.59 
.65 
.65 

.70 
.70 
.77 
.83 
.82 
.90 
.96 
.87 
.97 

1.04 
.97 

1.05 
.97 
.88 

1.45 



With the two exceptions of Russia and Turkey we find rail- 
way traveling more expensive in Great Britain than in any 
other European country. In the United States, like Russia, 



340 BEE AB -WINNERS ABBOAB. 

a shocking example of protection and high-priced traveling, 
the average charge per mile per passenger in 1883 regardless 
of class was 2.42 cents or about lid. English money as 
against an average charge per mile per passenger in Great 
Britain of lid. Thus traveling is cheaper in all the pro- 
tected countries of Europe (excepting Eussia and Turkey) 
than in free-trade England, a fact with some subsequent 
facts about freight charges which I trust our protection 
editors and orators will please remember when the free- 
traders begin to groan next winter about the $17 per ton 
duty on steel rails which we have more than once heard 
makes traveling so much more expensive and freights so 
much higher in the United States than in free-trade Eng- 
land. 

When in London last weeek I obtained from Mr. J. S. 
Jeans, Secretary of the British Iron Trade Association and 
one of the best informed men in the kingdom on the smb- 
ject of railway rates on iron and iron making material, 
some valuable statistics on comparative English and foreign 
railway rates of freight charges. A summary of Mr. Jeans' 
tables show that the average English rates for iron ore com- 
pared with the continental rates is about 58 per cent higher 
than that of France ; 87 per cent higher than that of Ger- 
many and Luxemburg, and 82 per cent on the general 
average higher than continental countries. It is proper to 
remark with some regard to iron ores that the average dis- 
tance over which they are carried in France and Germany 
is considerably greater than in England. With reference to 
the rates for the transport of pig iron from works to ports, 
the average ascertained for England is .83d. per ton per 
mile, as compared with .59d. for France and .58d. for Ger- 
many, showing a higher average rate for England of not less 
than 40 per cent as compared with France and 43 per cent 
with Germany. The average English rate for the transport 
of pig iron from works to inland markets is shown to be 
l.Old. per ton per mile as compared with .50d. for Germany 
and .60d. for France. The difference against England being 



MANGEE8TER—TEE COTTON REGION. 34] 

102 per cent as compared with Germany and 68 per cent 
with France. 

With reference to the rates charged in England for the 
transport of finished iron and steel it appears that the aver- 
age of nine leading districts comes out as 1.06d. per ton per 
mile from works to ports against .59d. per ton per mile for 
France; .54d. for Germany, and .86d. for Belgium. Being 
respectively 79.96 and 25 per cent against England. The 
average of the English rates is higher than her continental 
competitors 120 per cent as compared with France ; 115 per 
cent with Germany and 30 per cent with Belgium. The 
French rates, it is fair to state, do not usually include a 
small booking charge which may reduce the percentage 
somewhat and the average length of lead is, of course, 
greater in France and Germany, but allowing for all this we 
find in free-trade England, in spite of the starvation wages 
paid railway employees and the hours of work demanded of 
them, that rates for passengers and freight charges are by 
no means so cheap as free-traders would have us imagine. 
I make no comments on these figures, but commend them 
to all who are inquiring after truth. 



LXXXII. 

Manchester— The Cotton Eegion. 

Lancashire is the most populous county in England, ex- 
ceeding, in 1881, both Yorkshire and Middlesex, and num- 
bering 3,454,225 persons. It contains two of England's great 
centres of industrial energy, Liverpool and Manchester, and 
besides its commercial importance it is the centre of Eng- 
land's greatest industry, which employs nearly half a 
million of men, women, and children, and which at one time 
almost supplied the world with cotton goods. It is not with 
the entire county that this letter purposes to deal, but with 



342 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

what may be called the northeast and southeast divisions, 
which contain about two millions of the three and a half 
millions of population, and the towns in which districts 
are almost wholly given over to the manufacture of cotton 
goods. The cotton region is concentrated within the narrow 
area of twenty by thirty miles, and connected by a perfect 
network of railroads. 

The centre of this remarkable district, from an industrial 
standpoint, is Manchester, though, geographically, Bolton 
is the centre. Combined with Salford, which is really part 
of the cotton metropolis, the population of Manchester is 
about 520,000, though, with the immediately surrounding 
places, local authorities put it at 800,000. The growth of 
Manchester has been almost entirely within the present 
century, though it was considered an important village 
centuries ago. Leland, who visited the town in Henry 
VIII. 's time, described it as ^'the fairest, best builded, 
quickest and most populous town of all Lancashire," which 
did not then speak much for its size. Camden in his 
*' Brittanise," only devotes twelve lines to the Manchester of 
his day, though what he did say was decidedly complimen- 
tary: *^This surpasses the neighboring towns in elegance, 
populousness, a woolen manufactory, market, church, and 
college." The town was even then famous for the manu- 
facture of stuffs, though it is evident that the Manchester 
cottons of those days were made of wool. In 1750 a traveller 
visiting Manchester compared it with the most industrious 
towns of Holland; ^'the smallest children being all em- 
ployed and earning their bread. Besides the cotton manu- 
factures they deal in buttons, filleting, checks, and all kinds 
of small wares, as they are called, vast quantities of which 
they export abroad, to the West Indies particularly." 

Such was Manchester oVer 130 years ago. It was called 
the largest village in England, and was governed by a Con- 
stable. Fifty years later, at the close of the last century, 
Manchester had greatly advanced. The Duke of Bridge- 
water, aided by the famous Brindley, had built his canal 



\ 



MANGHEBTER^THE COTTON REGION. 343 

and given Manchester with her 50,000 inhabitants cheap coal 
and transportation. The ingenious Arkwright had built a 
mill which the local historian of the time describes as 
'^ worked by a steam-engine and having one room 230 fee/ 
long and twelve yards wide." In commenting on the canal 
enterprise, Aiken, the historian of Manchester (1795), says, 
'^Nothing but highly flourishing manufactures can repay 
the vast expense of these designs." When finished he thinks 
Manchester '' will probably enjoy more various water com- 
munications than the most commercial town of the Low 
Countries has ever done." The principal cause of this sud- 
den increase to the power of cheap carriage possessed by 
Manchester,— a power greater than that which made the 
prosperity of Ghent and Bruges,— was that within the period 
I have mentioned it had become the metropolis of cotton — 
the centre of that manufacture which from small beginnings 
had assumed what in those days were considered gigantic 
proportions. The population, busy when Defoe visited Man- 
chester with ^' small things called Manchester wares," had 
passed away, and the foundation of a great industry had 
been laid. A century ago, of all British industries the cot- 
ton was probably the least conspicuous. Cotton did not 
enter into the common dress of the people. It was too dear 
for general use until the genius and ingenuity of such 
mechanicians as Lewis Paul, Lawrence Earnshaw, Har- 
greaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Kay, and Peel gave the 
spinning-jenny, the car ding-machine, the water-frame, and 
the mule, and a score of other improvements, and instead of 
domestic production cotton goods became almost wholly the 
product of machinery. ^'To them it is," says Levi, *'that 
we owe the factory system with its attendant advantages — 
economy of power, division of labor, and concentration of 
skill and superintendence ; and to them, too, we are beholden 
for that extraordinary change in the fortunes of Lancashire, 
which henceforth threw aside her agricultural garb and 
almost pastoral simphcity to assume the more active and 
stirring occupations of industry and manufactures," 



. 344 BREAD - WINNERS ABROAD. 

It is not necessary for me in this brief review of the early- 
days of the cotton industry to touch on the endless difficul- 
ties, not to say hardships that the pioneers in this great in- 
dustrial revolution had to encounter ; of the jealousy which 
was excited by the innovations ; how the house of Kay was 
entered into and every machine it contained knocked to 
pieces; how the Blackburn spinners were not content till 
they destroyed the jenny, and drove Hargreaves himself 
from his home. Arkwright was obhged to resort to all 
manner of stratagems to evade pursuit, and poor Crompton 
more than once was compelled to take his mule to pieces, 
and hide its various parts in a garret. These are all matters 
of history, full of the intensest interest after one has visited 
the factories of this district and become familiar with the 
great mechanical principles each one of these men evolved, 
and sees them r.ll at work with the improvements of a 
century added. 

The trade of Manchester before the days of railroads may 
be divided into four periods. The first is that when the 
manufacturers worked hard merely for a Uvelihood, without 
having accumulated any capital ; the second when they had 
begun to acquire little fortunes, but worked as hard and 
lived in as plain a manner as before ; the third when luxury 
began to appear and trade was pushed by sending out 
^'riders " for orders to every market town in the Kingdom ; 
and the fourth the period in which expense and luxury had 
made great progress, and were supported by a trade ex- 
tended by means of ** riders " and *' factors " through every 
part of Europe. When the Manchester trade began to ex- 
pand the ^'chapmen" used to keep gangs of pack-horses, 
and accompany them to the principal towns with goods in 
packs, which they opened and sold to shopkeepers, lodging 
what was unsold in small stores at the inns. On the im- 
provement of the turnpikes wagons were set up for this 
trade a.id pack-horses discontinued, and the *' chapmen" 
only rode out for orders carrying with them patterns in their 
bags. In those early days the good old dames of Manchester 



MANCHESTER— THE COTTON REGION 345 

regaled themselves with ale and a pipe, and the *'new 
fashioned beverage," tea, was an innovation. Apprentices 
turned warping mills, and carried goods on their shoulders 
through the streets. The most eminent manufacturers were 
at their warehouses at six in the morning accompanied by 
their children and apprentices. At seven they all sat down 
to breakfast, which consisted of one large dish of water 
pottage, made of oat meal, water, and a Httle salt, boiled 
thick, and poured into a dish. At the side was a pan of 
milk, which with the oatmeal composed the breakfast. 
Besides ale, home-made wine was almost exclusively used, 
and a young manufacturer, for buying a pint of foreign 
wine to treat a good customer, subjected himself to the sar- 
castic remarks of all his neighbors. The young ladies went 
to pastry-cook school, and a dancing master on particular 
occasions used to make the boys and girls parade two by 
two through some of the streets. The club of the most opu- 
lent merchants was on the most economical plan; the ex- 
penses of each person were fixed at fourpence half-penny 
per evening — fourpence for ale and a half -penny for 
tobacco. Some of the tavern-keepers at the close of the last 
century were little short of tyrants. They refused to serve 
any one after 8 o'clock, and one named John Shame at that 
hour used to bring out a whip with a long lash, and clear 
the house. In those days the manufacturer did not disdain 
to mix with the humble tradesman in a common public 
house, to take his glass of punch and hear the news of the 
town. *^ It is not unworthy of remark," says Aiken writing 
in 1795, *^ and to a stranger is very extraordinary, that 
merchants of the first fortunes quit the elegant drawing- 
room to sit in a small, dark dungeon, for this house cannot 
be called by a bttter name ; but such is the force of long- 
estabhshed custom." 

With the dawn of the nineteenth century Manchester 
began a new era. Her population had increased in 1801 to 
95,000. The same year the power loom was first brought 
into profitable use at Glasgow, and a few years later tho ad- 



346 BBB AD -WINNERS ABROAD 

vantage of the principle of automatic weaving was fully ac- 
knowledged. From this time the production and con- 
sumption of cotton began to increase, and with this increase 
Manchester and the surrounding district began a rapid 
growth. At the beginning of the century less than a hun- 
dred thousand bales of cotton were sufficient for the require- 
ments of Great Britain, and now about three million of 
bales are required. The total value of manufactured cotton 
goods exported in 1800 was $27,000,000, whereas in 1880 it 
had increased to $377,500,000. In 1817 it was estimated that 
110,763 persons were employed in Great Britain in the spin- 
ning ot cotton, and the spindles then in motion numbered 
6,645,833. Eighteen years later, according to the returns of 
the inspectors of factories (1835), there were 1,262 factories 
in operation employing 100,495 males and 119,639 females, 
making a total for the Kingdom of 220,134, nearly 123,000 of 
which number were engaged in Lancashire, 31,000 in Che- 
shire adjoining, 11,000 in the West Eiding of Yorkshire, and 
33,000 in Scotland. In brief, 165,000 out of the 182,092 en- 
gaged in England found employment in the district sur- 
rounding Manchester. It will be observed that half a cen- 
tury ago there were more persons employed in this industry 
in England alone than the census of 1880 shows to be em- 
ployed at the present time in the manufacture of cotton 
goods in the United States. Also, that the phenomenal 
growth of this industry during the first thirty years of the 
present refutes Professor Sumner's absurd declaration that 
^^ protection kept England back a century." 



LXXXIII. 
Effect of a Free-Trade Policy. 

With the expansion of the cotton industry, Manchester 
increased in population, but its most remarkable strides 



EFFECT OF A FREE-TBaWE POLICY, 



347 



were all made before 1851, before the United States began to 
manufacture for itself ; and strangely enough its most mar- 
vellous growth of population was up to 1841, before Sir 
Robert Peel's Free-Trade policy was inaugurated. Below 
I have prepared a table showing the combined population 
of Manchester and Salf ord at the close of the several decades 
of the present century : 



Year. 


Population. 


Increase Per Cent. 


1801 


95,000 
162,000 
238,000 
300,000 
400,000 
440,000 
476,000 
518,000 




1821 


70 


1831 , 


46 


1841 


26 


1851 


33 


1861 c. 


10 


1871 


8 


1881 


9 







Total per cent of increase during century 445 

A glance at the above will show that so far as population 
is concerned Manchester has seen her palmiest days, and for 
the last thirty years, from one cause and another, is on the 
decline. Indeed, if we take Manchester separately from 
Salf ord, the increase in her population from 1861 to 1871 was 
only 3 7-10 per cent., while for the decade ending in 1881 the 
city has actually decreased in population 2 8-10 per cent, 
while the increase in population for the last twenty years 
has been only eight-tenths of one per cent. What would 
people in the United States think if their great manufactur- 
ing centres increased in population less than one per cent in 
twenty years? In my table I give Manchester the benefit of 
Salf ord, and then it will be seen that during the last thirty 
years the increase has not, on the average, reached one per 
cent a year. 

What has the American protective tariff had to do with 
this migration of part of the cotton trade from Manchester 



348 BREAD .WINNERS ABROAD. 

to New England? I will let English authorities tell the story, 
says a writer in the London Quarterly Review : 

"The competition of the United States is certainly real. 
It has not only virtually deprived us of its 50,000,000 of people 
as customers, but it threatens us with permanent active 
rivalry in outside markets." 

Again : 

'* The American textile manufacturers have not only been 
loud in their demand for protection, bat they have received 
it in a high degree. They have increased their consumption 
of cotton under its influence to such an extent that their 
imports of cotton goods have steadily decHnedfrom 227,000,- 
000 in 1860 to 23,000,000 yards in 1881. 

On the other hand, American exports of cotton goods 
reached in 1881 nearly 150,000,000 yards. It has been 
claimed in some quarters that the export of American cotton 
goods to Manchester was merely made to "raise money," 
but this is most explicitly denied by Mr. James Thornely, an 
Englishman, who visited the United States a few years ago 
for the express purpose of investigating the matter, and 
whose report seems an impartial and exceedingly intelligent 
one. Mr. Thornely says: "In no case have the Americans 
sent cloth here in order to ^ raise money' upon it, nor, as 
has been suggested, have the exports been merely relief ship- 
ments on which a loss could be afforded in consideration of 
the higher prices to be obtained in the protected home mar- 
kets. The goods have always been sold at such prices as left 
a profit to their makers, and the transactions have, in every 
instance, been conducted upon a purely mercantile basis." 

Perhaps it is not generally known in the United States, 
outside of the cotton goods trade, that certain home-trade 
houses in England not only call English cloth American but 
stamp it with the names and trade-marks of certain American 
mills. At present American manufacturers have not 
thought it worth while to stop this fraud, but when foreign 
trade becomes an object they will undoubtedly take steps to 



EFFECT OF A FBEE-TRADE POLICY. 349 

put an end to it. In summing up the result of this inquiry 
Mr. Tbornely says : 

^^ In the first instance, American spinners have a decided 
advantage in the cost of carrying their cotton — this amount- 
ing, as I have said previously, in round figures to 0.7 cent, 
or f d. per lb. Another advantage is, that people in America 
work longer than in England, and they take fewer hohdays. 
From what I saw, I should say that they drink less, but even 
if this is not the case, there is no doubt that drunkenness is 
less common than in England. Trades unions are almost 
unknown, and thus employers are able to make their calcu- 
lations more surely, and the work-people can attend to their 
work better than in G-reat Britain. The earnings of the 
working- classes are spent in providing for their wants, and 
what they do not require for this purpose is invested, thus 
providing capital for the further employment of the popula- 
tion, instead of being frittered away in vain attempts to raise 
wages to an unnatural level. The food-producing districts 
of the world are nearer to the American than to the English 
manufactories, and the necessaries of life are therefore 
cheaper." 

There can be no doubt that the cost on industry in Eng- 
land has reached its height and that Manchester has seen her 
palmiest days. I have already shown the decline in, its pop- 
ulation. The American Consul, Colonel Shaw, a close 
observer and careful statistician, openly says that Manches- 
ter has ^'touched the height of her fame and prosperity." 
He thinks ' ' the day is not far distant when her decay will 
become apparent." The fact is, the decay is apparent now. 
My next letter will be devoted to the condition of the opera- 
tives in the industrial quarters of Manchester, and will unfold 
a state of affairs that Colonel Shaw himseK did not know 
existed until he accompanied me to the wretched homes of 
hundreds of operatives. The explanation of the decay is 
simple enough and unanswerable. With protected barriers 
to aid them England's rivals have been making greater pro- 
gress than England. The consumption of England's goods 



850 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

no longer grows at its old pace and the population of the 
centre of the cotton trade remains stationary, while the 
condition of its operatives in Manchester and Salford grows 
worse and worse. In 1842 Great Britain consumed about 
1,375,000 bales of cotton; the continent of Europe only 
816,000 bales; and the United States about 325,000 bales. 
To-day Great Britain's annual consumption does not greatly 
exceed 3, 000, 000 bales; the continent of Europe has increased 
to an annual consumption of 2,500,000 bales; and the United 
States to about 1,500,000 bales. Thus under a protective 
policy the European continent and the United States have 
increased their annual consumption of cotton from 1,141,000 
bales in 1842 to 4,100,000 bales at the present time, while 
Great Britain has increased from 1,375,000 bales in 1842 to 
3,000,000 bales at the present time, an increase of 1,625,000 
bales against an increase of nearly 3,000,000 bales for the 
European continent and the United States. Without going 
into the question as to whether or not a protective policy 
benefited England, we have here the important fact that 
since 1842 the consumption of raw cotton in protective coun- 
tries has grown at a much more rapid rate than it has in free- 
trade England, and that whatever free trade may have done 
to benefit England, under the influence of protection, other 
countries have made greater progress. It is therefore safe 
to assert that foreign competition is at the root of the decline 
in the cotton trade, and of the decay of and decrease in the 
population of Manchester. 



LXXXIV. 

Labor and Wages in Manchester. 

In a former letter from this place I gave a brief outline of 
the old-time Manchester — the cotton center of the eight- 
eenth century. Its rapid progress in the first five decades 



LABOR AND WAGES IN MANGHESTER. 351 

of the present century was pointed out, and then its gradual 
decline in population during the last thirty years. Of 
course this dechne may be in part due to the growth of the 
thriving towns surrounding it, and it is in those towns that 
are found the finest mills, the best machinery, the most 
thrifty operatives. At Bolton I was taken over *^ Sunny- 
side" mill by Mr. Lee, one of the proprietors, and found it 
one of the finest mills I had ever visited. I presume there 
is nothing at home, even at Lowell, to excel it. The build- 
ings were new and arranged on the most approved plans. 
The machinery embraced every improvement. The speed 
attained was the highest. Everything, from the top to the 
bottom of these spacious mills, seemed to move along the 
line of least resistance, all the finer points which have to be 
looked after in the cotton district in order to make a small 
profit were carefully watched, and expense in aU directions 
was reduced to a minimum. Again at Oldham, where most 
of the mills for spinning are located, I found by following 
this specialty they had attained a lead in spinning the lower 
counts of yam. In the same way at Blackburn and Burn- 
ley they have special advantages in weaving cottons. In aU 
of these places the operatives were better housed, better fed, 
and earned better wages than the operatives in the cities of 
Manchester and Salf ord, for the reason that in some of the 
Manchester and Salford districts the mills and machinery 
are old and worn-out and poor. Although the wages paid 
are by piece, the slow motion of the machinery is such that 
operatives do not earn so much as they do in outside places 
like Bolton, Oldham, Blackburn, and Burnley, where the 
mills are new and run at greater speed. 

For example, at Bolton I spent an afternoon with United 
States Consul Albert D. Shaw and Mr. Lee of the Sunnyside 
mills, among the operatives. We found them housed in 
comfortable cottage homes, many of which had been built by 
Mr. Lee, and all of which were let to the operatives at a fair 
rent. The mill is located just outside Bolton, and the 
houses seem almost in the country ; the air is good and the 



352 



BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 



homes cheerful and comfortable— sunilar in many respects 
to Paisley. A school-room and tuition are provided for the 
half timers, and also for the young children of the opera- 
tives. Temperate and thrifty habits are encouraged, and 
the operatives are treated with some consideration. But 
unfortunately all the mills are not Sunnyside mills ; a good 
many of them, especially in Manchester and Salford, are 
rather ^' gloomy-side" mills, and the operatives live in nar- 
row, smoky streets and breathe the fetid atmosphere of 
wretched homes into which not one ray of sunshine ever 
penetrates and where there is no future for the inmates but 
the workhouse and the grave. 

Some idea of the difference in the wages paid in this in- 
dustry in New-England and Lancashire may be obtained 
from the following table : 



COTTON GOODS. 



United States 
Weekly Wages. 

Overseers (carding) $20 50 

Overseers (spinning) 20 00 

Overseers (weaving) 21 50 

Overseers (yard) 19 25 



England. 
Weekly Wages. 

Overseers (carding) $7 30 

Overseers (spinning) .... 10 50 

Overseers (weaving) 9 50 

Overseers (yard) 9 75 



CARDINa. 



Bobbin tenders $5 25 

Carders 8 00 

Drawing hands 6 00 

Shibbers 6 50 



Bobbin tenders $2 25 

Carders 8 00 

Drawing hands 4 25 

Shibbers 4 25 



SPINNING. 



Doffers (young people). . . $4 00 

Spinners, M 9 75 

Spinners, W 5 00 

Twisters 5 25 

Winders, W 7 00 



Doffers (young people) $1 25 

Spinders,M 4 50 

Spinners, W 2 25 

Twisters 2 75 

Winders, W 2 00 . 



DRESSING. 



Dressers $7 50 

Slashers 10 00 

Spoolers 5 00 

Warpers, W 6 00 



Dressers |6 00 

Slashers 7 50 

Spoolers 3 50 

Warpers, W 4 25 



LABOR AND WAGES IN MANCHESTER. 



353 



WEAYTNG. 



Weavers (4 looms), W . . , 
Weavers (2 looms), W . . 

Weavers, W . , 

Weavers (young people) . 



$6 50 
6 00 
6 50 
5 50 



Weavers (4 looms), W $5 25 

Weavers (2 looms), W 3 35 

Weavers, W 3 50 

Weavers (young people).. 1 25 



CLOTH ROOM. 



Cloth-room hands, M and 
W..., $6 25 

Cloth-room hands (young 
people) 6 00 

Cloth-room hands (chil- 
dren) 4 25 



Cloth-room hands, M and 
W $4 75 

Cloth-room hands (young 
people) 3 25 

Cloth, room hands (chil- 
dren) 1 25 



ENGINEERS AND FIREMEN. 



Engineers $16 50 | Engineers. 

Firemen 8 50 I Firemen. . 

Laborers 6 75 Laborers . . 



$8 25 
5 50 
5 50 



FLAX AND JUTE. 



Overseers $12 00 | 

Overseers (weaving) 10 50 ] 



Overseers $6 75 

Overseers (weaving) 5 85 



CARDING. 



Carders $7 00 I Carders $6 80 

Carders, W 4 30 | Carders, W 3 8o 



SPINNING. 



Piercers, Y.P $3 25 

Reelers, W 6 80 

Spinners, W 4 90 

Winders, W 3 60 

Dressers, M 9 50 

Weavers, M 9 00 

Weavers, W 6 00 

Calenders, M 7 25 

Packers,M 8 50 



Piercers, Y.P $1 50 

Reelers, W • 3 30 

Spinners, W 2 50 

Winders, W 3 00 

Dressers, M 5 60 

Weavers M 6 50 

Weavers, W 2 50 

Calenders, M 5 50 

Packers,M 6 10 



MECHANICS. 



Machinist $10 50 I 

Engineer 21 00 | 

23 



Machinist $8 25 

Engineer 8 75 



354 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

LXXXV. 

The Dwellers of Coketown. 

Take a map of Manchester and divide the city into five dis- 
tricts ; the centre district, extending east of the river Irwell, 
say to London Eoad Station, north a httle beyond Market 
street, and south a few blocks below Liverpool road and Great 
Bridge street, and you have what may be termed the com- 
mercial part of the city, the handsome blocks of shops, the 
tall warehouses, and the magnificent public buildings, for 
which the town is so justly famous. Further south you 
come to a district of which Stratford, New Road, Cavendish 
street, and Grosvenor street may be considered the centre, 
and here is the residence of well-to-do mechanics and per- 
sons of small means. On the east and the west of this, ex- 
tending beyond the boundaries of the town, are the hand- 
some villas and residences of the merchants and the wealthy 
classes of Manchester. Coming from one end of the social 
scale to the other, and in doing so from the extreme south 
to the extreme north of the city, one finds a quarter bounded 
on the northeast by the Oldham road, with George road for 
a centre, in which reside the thieves, the low Irish, the man 
who has no visible means of support. In this district the 
pubhc houses are of the lowest order, and the people that 
inhabit it the worst, and if any one doubts what I say, let 
him take a walk after 9 o'clock some evening through 
Angel, Charter, Goulden and Abel streets. Crown lane, 
Crown street, Ashley lane, Longmillgate and Rochdale 
road. This district is the lowest quarter of Manchester. 

I have been thus explicit, because in some of my former 
letters, though I have never confused the industrial with 
the low quarter of a city, I have been accused of so doing 
by persons who, for various reasons, did not relish reading 
the truth about Industrial England. Having thus in a gen- 



THE DWELLERS OF COKETOWN. 355 

eral way outlined four districts of Manchester, I will attempt 
to describe the largest and most important, the industrial 
quarter of the city, where the great mills are located and 
where the operatives hve. This district has for its north- 
western boundary Oldham road. On the east it extends to 
the boundary of the city, its southern extremity is the Man- 
chester and Sheffield Eailway track, and it runs northwest 
until it almost touches London road and Piccadilly, and 
comprises an area of three square miles of closely -built 
dwelling houses and tall, unpicturesque mills. I walked 
through this entire district, and visited more than a hundred 
and fifty of the operatives' homes, taking ten or a dozen on 
each street. The names of some of the principal streets so 
visited were as follows : Great Ancoat street. Union street, 
Beswick street, Butler street, George Leigh street, Gunn 
street, Bengal street. Primrose street, Ehzabeth street, Bos- 
lam street, Canning street, Thompson street, Chadderton 
street, Woodward street. Bach street, and a number of others 
the names of which I failed to take down. 

I was accompanied by United States Consul Shaw and 
Inspector P. H. Gillespie, especially detailed by Chief Con- 
stable Wood to show me the industrial quarter of Manchester 
that I might be enabled to faii^ly judge of the social condi- 
tion of the working classes of the cotton metropoHs. 

There were miles of narrow streets and thousands of 
houses. Some had bare wooden floors, some had red-brick 
floors, some had bare flag-stone floors. Hardly one had 
a vestige of carpet. The rents for these houses, contain- 
ing two or three Uttle rooms, varied from as low as 2s. 
6d. (60 cents) to as high as 6s. ($1.44) per week. The 
landlords never do anything for their tenements, but 
they are allowed to crumble gradually to pieces until they 
become uninhabitable. The rent collectors were like the 
ever-steaming Pancks, and I have no doubt that the own- 
ers of this property are benevolent-looking old Casbys, 
who keep in the background and send their emissaries into 
these Bleeding Heart yards of Manchester to squeeze and 



356 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

grind, and many a pale-faced woman told us that one week's 
rent in arrears brought down upon them the bailiff, and the 
few chairs, the deal table, and the cheap bedstead were sold 
to pay the rent. Both Colonel Shaw and myself were greatly 
surprised to find the homes of the industrial classes in Man- 
chester so poor. In our ^ walks we met with, besides mill- 
hands, many other classes of artisans, farmers, engineers, 
tailors, blind-makers, chair-makers, polishers, butchers, 
grinders, printers, dyers, and here and there a laborer. The 
average amount that these people actually received per week 
during the year hardly ever exceed a pound, or $5. They 
live from hand to mouth, generally in one room, in which a 
few chairs, a deal table, a bedstead, four or five cups and 
saucers, a few dishes and plates, a wash-tub, a saucepan, and 
a kettle comprised the chief articles of furniture. Every- 
thing, in many cases including the sleeping and family 
washing, is done in the general room. I cannot recall a 
single instance in which I found that the wife had made 
much effort to make the home comfortable or cosey, hardly 
to say clean. The outlook was so cheerless that perhaps 
they had not the heart to make an effort. In one home 
where the husband was a fine-yarn spinner, the following 
conversation took place : 

*' What does your husband do?" 

^^ He is a fine-yarn spinner." 

*^How much does he earn ?" 

^' Well, he can earn sometimes as much as 30s. ($7.50), — 
that is, when work is brisk, — but he never brings that much 
home." 

^' Why not?" 

^^As a rule 5s. goes for the club and union. Last week 
the assessment was 7s., and I never get a pound for house 
expenses." 

^'What is her husband ?" said Colonal Shaw to a bright 
little woman of twenty -one, rather neater than the average 
women of the neighborhood. 

*^ A laborer in an ivory factory," she replied. 



THE DWELLERS OF COKETOWN, 357 

'^ How much does he earn V asked the Colonel. 

''Only 16s. ($4) a week, sir." 

''Why, how do you live ?" asked the surprised Colonel. 

"It's pretty hard, sir," repHed the little woman; "we 
never eat meat, of course, and you see what our home is." 

And the kind-hearted Colonel put something into the little 
woman's hand and remarked to me, "This is awful," as 
he walked away. 

In no case did we find a female spinner who earned more 
than 14s. ($3.36) a week, a piecer who earned more than 10s. 
6d. ($2.52), a weaver who earned over 16s. ($3.84) if a woman, 
and not over 22s. ($5.28) if a man. I do not say that in such 
mills as I have described at Bolton, Oldham, Blackburn, or 
Burnley, under more favorable circumstances the operators 
cannot earn more ; but the above were the highest wages we 
were able to discover in the industrial quarters of Manches- 
ter,— that is, from an operative's standpoint. I might add 
that Mr. Robert Giffen, of the Board of Trade, has kindly 
provided me with a proof of his forthcoming wage-tables to 
be published in the Miscellaneous Statistics volume for 1882, 
and that the statement as given to me by the operatives 
agrees with the official returns sent to the Board of Trade 
by the manufacturers. 

At one house we met an old man who had for thirty years 
been a stripper. He furnished his own frame, and earned 
from 12s. to 16s. a week. " Meat !" said the old man, in reply 
to a question put to him by Colonel Shaw, " why, I never 
see it, except in the butchers' shops." He accompanied us 
to a place where a number of strippers were at work strip- 
ping various kinds of corduroy. The women told us that by 
working all the week at this monotonous work they could 
net 8s. ($1.92.) 

In the course of this dismal journey through the habita- 
tions of these industrious people, the profit from whose 
hard, incessant toil has built the great city of Manchester, 
Colonel Shaw met one of the great miU-owners of the district. 
He was a fine specimen of an Englishman, and he stood on 



358 BREAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

the front steps of his mill surveying the scene with com- 
placency, thinking, no doubt, how he could still further re- 
duce the cost of cotton and cloth a tenth of a farthing a 
yard. The following dialogue took place: 

^^ I feel," said Colonel Shaw, *' almost sick at heart at what 
I have seen to-day. Did you ever put your nose in the 
houses of the working people of this district ?" 

*' Never." 

*' Why, their homes are very wretched. You ought to see 
the homes of the operatives in the United States ; they live 
in a paradise compared to this." 

** Ah, well, you don't say so ? You surprise me." 

^' I could not have beheved they were so bad here if I had 
not gone round and seen for myself. They are so comfortable 
in some of the smaller towns of the cotton district that I had 
no idea there was so much difference. It is enough to make 
any one ill to see so much poverty and misery among the 
industrial classes. " 

It will be seen by this that some mill-owners themselves 
know nothing of the real condition of their operatives. 

As we returned from one of these excursions we met 
a large number of girls and women streaming out of 
the mills. Their pointed wooden shoes clattered on the 
pavement. I wonder what the Lowell factory-girls, with 
their neat hats, and sunshades, and natty boots, and white 
cotton gloves, would think of wooden shoes, the uppers 
nailed to the soles with brass-headed nails ! Cheap as 
clothing is said to be in England, the Manchester girls wear 
no hats; an old shawl and a dirty print gown and wooden 
shoes form their street toilet as they go to and return from 
their daily toil. 

The following estimate of the rates of wages in cotton, card- 
ing, and spinning in Manchester and neighborhood is from 
the Miscellaneous Eeport (1882), and was furnished me by Mr. 
Giff en. It is only fair to say that Mr. Giffen is dependent for 
these statistics on the returns obligingly communicated to 



THE DWELLERS OF COKETOWK 359 

his department by the councils and secretaries of Chambers 
of Commerce and by private firms. The following estimate, 
though coming from the manufacturers, so nearly accords 
with the statements made to me by the operatives that I 
believe it to be the most accurate estimate of the kind ever 
pubUshed : 

Rates of wages 
Description of Occupations. per week. 

Carding — 

Scutchers \^::v:::v::v-::v:::::::::::: ^\ g 
strippers \ Ss;;;;.v;;.v;.v;;;.v;.v;:: ;:::::::;. 3' S 
<^-ders j Ss:::::::::::::::;;;;:;:;;;;::;;::.: I S 

Lap and can tenters, women 2 16 

Drawing-frame tenters, women 3 48 to 3 68 

Roving and slubing, women 3 60 

Bobbin and fly tenters, girls 1 75 

Sweepers, girls 1 50 

Card minders, men. 6 48 

Under carders, women 2 88 

Overlookers, men 9 24 

Spinners — Upon self-acting mules — 

Minders, men 6 90 

Creelers, lads 1 50 

Piecers, w^omen and boys 2 05 to 3 00 

Overlookers, men ... 8 00 to 11 00 

Throstle Spinning — 

Spinners, women 3 48 

Spinners, girls 1 00 

Doffers to spinners, lads 2 16 

Overlookers, men 6 00 

Overlookers* assistants, men 4 50 

The Board of Trade returns gave no estimates in regard to 
cotton- weaving, but I append the following made by Consul 
Shaw. It must be borne in mind that Colonel Shaw's admi- 
rable estimates of wages are made for the towns outside of 
Manchester and Salford, and, as in those quoted below, for 
some specific mills, therefore they can hardly be taken as 
an average for the entire district: 



360 BBEAD'WINNEBS ABBOAD. 

Kind of Work. Wages per day. 

Weavers, 3 looms $0 64 to $0 72 

Weavers, 4 looms 80 to 96 

Weavers, 6 looms 1 20 to 1 44 

Weavers, children, half-timers 14 

Beamers or warpers c 70 to 90 

Winders 50 to 80 

Tapers or sizers 1 20 to 1 68 

Tacklers or overlookers 1 12 to 1 68 

Engine-drivers and firemen 96 to 1 68 

On the other hand, Mr. Giffen's report is compiled from 
the returns from a number of mills, and in no case, the 
compiler informed me, from the information obtained from 
a few mills. It is impossible to compare the rates of wages 
in this industry in England with the rates paid in the United 
States, because the nomenclature is so entirely different. 
Indeed, were I to attempt it I should tire my readers with 
details that are only interesting to the trade. The most 
trustworthy statement of the rates of wages in the cotton 
mills of the United States may be found in Carroll D. 
Wright's thirteenth annual report of the Bureau of Statistics 
of Massachusetts. 

Wages in the Manchester district are considerably lower 
than in the United States— at least, I should think, 50 per 
cent lower, in some instances 75 per cent ; and on the other 
hand, if you take exceptional towns and exceptional mills, 
as, for example, the Sunnyside miU at Bolton, the difference 
is not nearly so great— possibly not more than 25 per cent. 
With this cheaper labor, with a climate that is superior for 
the finer spinning, with cheaper machinery, with a class of 
operatives that are fixtures to the mills and not constantly 
moving westward and aiming for better things with half a 
century the start, it is hardly surprising that the Manchester 
Examiner should declare editorially that ^'if the United 
States were to abolish the duty on cotton goods we should 
shut up every one of their cotton mills in less than two 
years." A good deal of this is British bluster, and will 
evoke a quiet smile from such men as Charles H. Dalton, of 
the Merrimac mills, and a dozen others I could name. At 



THE DWELLERS OF COKETOWN, 361 

the same time America needs judicious protection in this as 
in every other industry. 

In my last letter I produced figures that show conclusively 
that England's protective competitors have been making 
greater advances since 1842 in this industry than she has 
done ; in short, that they are outstripping her in the race. 
It is nothing but British obstinacy that prevents her people 
from seeing this. On the other hand, the protective conti-' 
nent of Europe and the United States must bear in mind that 
England had half a century the start, and that this rapid 
growth may be due to the fact that when these countries 
ceased to be mere dependants on England and decided to 
build factories of their own they were unable to meet the 
home demand for goods without rapidly multiplying fac- 
tories and spindles. The actual number of cotton spindles 
in the world is estimated at 70,000,000, and the number of 
operatives at 1,370,000, viz. : 

Countries. Operatives. Spindles. 

Great Britain 480,000 40,000,000 

United States 200,000 10,500,000 

France 210,000 5,000,000 

Germany 136, 000 6, 000, 000 

Russia '. 130,000 3,500, 000 

Switzerland, Austria, India 250, 000 5, 000, 000 

1,370,000 70,000,000 

The latest return of the United States census gives the 
total number employed in the cotton industry and industries 
of which cotton is the chief component material as some- 
thing over 200,000. But these factories, operatives and 
spindles are scattered over a continent, 489 factories being 
located in the New England States, 189 in the Middle States, 
161 in the Southern States, and 17 in the Western States. 
On the other hand, of the 488,000 persons engaged at present 
in the cotton factories of the United Kingdom, 872,218 are 
employed in Lancashire alone, in the district described in my 
last letter, within an area of twenty by thirty miles. This 
shows the wonderful concentration of force in England — a 



362 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

concentration that can be found in no other country of the 
world. And the advantage possessed by England is, that 
even in this narrow area each town has its specialty — a fact 
brought out in the beginning of this letter and proved from 
the ease with which different branches are kept distinct. 
Of the 372,218 persons employed in Lancashire, 101,241 
are engaged in spinning, 102,783 in weaving, 165,508 in 
spinning and weaving combined, and 2,386 unenumerated. 
Whatever may be the future of the American cotton indus- 
try, it is certainly in no condition at the present time to 
compete with Great Britain. That America excels the 
world in some lines of goods is true, and that England steals 
the trade-mark of some American mills is admitted by 
English authorities. I may even go so far as to admit that 
this industry has emerged from its period of infancy, but it 
still consumes but half the cotton that G-reat Britain does, 
and employs less than half the operatives. There is a ten- 
dency among some of the New England cotton manufactur- 
ers to overestimate their own strength. Eeduce the present 
barriers ever so little, and England, with her thousands of 
half-fed and badly-housed operatives, stands ready to ^^shut 
up every one of their cotton mills in less than two years." 
With a liberal allowance for British bluster, there is some 
truth in this frank announcement. 



LXXXYI. 

FuRNESs Abbey— A Tragic Story. 

It would have been impossible to see what I shall term 
the twin American manufacturing towns of England, Middles- 
boro and Barrow, under the guidance of one better quali- ■ 
fied for the task of guide and adviser than Mr. I. Low- 
thian Bell. In all matters appertaining to iron and its man- 
ufactures Mr. Bell is the foremost man in England and a 



FUBNE88 ABBEY— A TEAQIG 8T0RT, 363 

recognized authority throughout the world. He has been 
commissioned to the principal world's expositions and has 
visited the iron centers of all iron-producing countries, and 
studied for himself the quality of the ore, the nearness of 
coal, and the methods of manufacture. There is no English 
authority on iron better known or more widely respected 
in the United States than Mr Bell, and to be taken in hand 
by him I regarded as a special piece of good fortune. His 
book, just published, '* Principles of the Manufacture of Iron 
and Steel," is one of the most exhaustive and useful treatises 
on the subject we have had in recent years, and, moreover, 
goes into the economic phases of the question with a con- 
siderable degree of fairness for one so closely wedded to the 
doctrine of free trade as Mr. Bell is. Mr. Bell has vast 
interests both in Middlesboro and Barrow, and I was 
offered everj possible opportunity to study Middlesboro 
under the direction of Mr. Bell and his son, Mr. Hugh Bell, 
together with Mr. H. G. Reid, the proprietor of the Middles- 
boro Gazette^ and one of the partners of Mr. Andrew Car- 
negie in the syndicate of EngUsh newspapers. 

This letter will deal with Barrow and the iron industry. 
It is tiresome work traveling east and west in England, as 
there are no through routes. I started from Middlesboro on 
the east coast for Barrow on the west coast, accompanied 
by General J. Blackburn Jones, of Chicago, and Mr. David 
Dale, one of the directors of the Northeastern Railroad 
Company, at 2 in the afternoon, and did not reach Furness 
Abbey Hotel until 8 o'clock at night, where we found 
Mr. Bell awaiting us. During the journey thither I think 
we changed cars seven times. 

Domestic matters were somewhat mixed at the hotel. 
The landlord, John Brownwick, had just shown the bad 
taste to commit suicide under circumstances that may 
prove a warning to those who advertise for wives. Having 
already deposited the remains of two devoted women within 
the shades of the ancient abbey, and in spite of the fact that 
he had three pretty daughters to cheer his declining years, 



364 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

John seems to have longed for more feminine society to 
gladden his solitude, and, with pathetic simplicity, inserted 
his desire in the columns of a London newspaper. Among 
the applicants was a rather antique memher of the corps de 
ballet, who danced into honest John's affections by dint of 
lengthening her skirts, tucking her blondened locks under 
a matronly cap, and throwing her rouge-pots into the bay. 
In spite of the outward change, the passee coryphee re- 
tained sufficient of her former friskiness to make hfe a 
giddy whirl for the daughters and the servants of the hotel. 
In four weeks, driven desperate by their complaints, his 
own discomfort, and the grumbling and astonishment of the 
tourists of the lake district, the unhappy host shut himself 
up in a room and cut his throat. 

The rehct of Mr. Brownwick, or the ^' bride of aimonth,"as 
the sensational newspapers would put it, received us with a 
stagy dignity, and, excepting the poverty of our entertain- 
ment and the fullness of our bill, there was nothing to com- 
plain of at Furness Abbey Hotel. 

Though Barrow is a modern town (for England), Furness 
Abbey is one of the most ancient as well as one of the most 
celebrated monastic ruins in the kingdom. It was founded 
in 1127, and judging from its extent must have taken many 
years to build. The spot selected for it, though excellent 
for defense against the methods of warfare of those times, 
must have been desolate in the extreme. Within the mem- 
ory of people now living the roads in this vicinity have 
been impassable for vehicles of any kind. What could they 
have been in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a 
thought that has occurred to me more than once. The 
abbey was defended on the east and south by the dangerous 
quicksands of Morecambe Bay (dangerous to this day), on 
the west by the Irish Sea, and on the north by hills wliich in 
those days were covered with forests. It was therefore 
measurably secure from Scottish freebooters, who often, to 
gratify their passion for plunder, swooped down upon these 
repositories of wealth, ease, and plenty. The Abbot of 



FUBNESS ABBEY— A TBAGIC STOBT, 365 

Furness, before the times of Henry VIII., exercised vice- 
regal power over the country hereabouts. He levied and 
collected taxes, appointed all local ofl&cers, and disposed 
of criminals. It was, moreover, I am informed, a parent 
monastery, and several other lesser houses, covering a vast 
territory, were direct filiations from Furness. 

But the storm which swept over England when Henry 
YIlI. quarreled with the pope was not likely to leave such 
a wealthy and powerful establishment unhurt. It reached 
the monks of Furness in their quiet abode, and, after being 
charged with treason, conspiracy, falsehood, disrespect to 
the king, and a number of other terrible crimes, they were 
thrown into dungeons and the church property ^'surren- 
dered to the king," which meant in those days divided 
among the cormorants who executed the king's commands. 
This abbey now belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, and 
though it came into his family by marriage, the original 
owner, Thomas Preston, actually purchased it of the crown, 
a somewhat unusual occurrence for those days, church prop- 
erty oftentimes being the reward of personal and not infre- 
quently disagreeable service to the king. But I must leave 
the tourist, who has abundant time to wander amid the 
ruins of this stately ecclesiastical edifice, with its chaste and 
beautiful columns, symmetrical arches, quaint carvings, and 
elegant tracery, now covered with ivy and rapidly crumb- 
ling into decay. It is for them to picture this wonderful 
building as it was four or five centuries ago : to paint, if 
they please, the old abbot who controlled so much of the 
wealth of the surrounding neighborhood, with his armed 
retainers, his retinue of servants, and his pious monks, and 
to take a dip into the manners and customs of those stormy 
days in England's history. For an industrial series of letters 
perhaps I have already said some things that may appear 
irrelevant to the subject in hand, and the sooner I retrace 
my footsteps and get back to Mr. Bell and the industria 
growth of Barrow, perhaps the better. 



366 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

LXXXVII. 
Barrow-in-Furness— A Novel Town. 

While Barrow is an exceedingly novel town, and Mr. 
Gladstone himself has said of it that '4t probably would not 
be practicable to find a match for it in any portion of the 
country," it has little that is curious or interesting to 
Americans. We have twenty Barrows scattered over the 
American continent. Not, perhaps, all iron and steel and 
ship-building Barrows, but silk Barrows, woolen Barrows, 
cotton Barrows, and coal Barrows. You will find them in 
the Western States, on the Pacific coast, and only last year 
I visited and described several in the Southern States, 
where before the war a Barrow or a Middlesboro was as 
much of a curiosity as in England. 

If I may judge from a bass-reUef of bronze on a statue of 
Sir James Ramsden, who is the tutelary genius of the place, 
the fishing village of Barrow in 1846 consisted of a thatched 
cottage, a number of goats browsing, a woman nursing her 
infant, Piel Castle in the distance, and a tiny vessel in the 
channel. To-day it is a manufacturing center of 55,000 
inhabitants, with one of the largest steel- works and one of 
the best shipyards in the kingdom. It has excellent docks, 
a flax and jute mill capable of employing 3,000 hands, and a 
number of other important industries. The town itself has 
steadily advanced with the population. The streets are 
well paved and conveniently laid out, the public buildings 
are substantial, and some of them, notably the Town Hall, 
handsome. The shipyards of Barrow produced the City of 
Rome, and are capable of building a vessel 1,000 feet in 
length. The population of the town is almost exclusively 
made up of working people and their families. These families 
are housed to some extent on what is called the ^ ^ Scotch plan, ** 
namely, houses with three floors, each family occupying 



BAREOW-IN-FURNESS—A N'OYEL TOWN. 367 

a floor, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. These houses 
reminded me of those at Essen, in Germany. The interiors 
of a number into which I entered were far from being com- 
fortable. Women and children huddled together around 
the fire, complaining of dull times and high rent. The 
laborers' huts on Barrow Island, about 900 in number, were 
erected in order to furnish house accommodations, and now 
constitute one of the curiosities of the place. The wages in 
the jute-mills have been reduced to those paid in Dundee, 
Scotland, but the business is not profitable, and the hands 
are out on a strike. The fact is, Indian competition has 
ruined this textile industry of England. If Barrow, with 
all the capital of the Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of 
Buccleuch at the back of it, could not make it a success, it 
would indicate that the extension of flax and jute manufac- 
turing is at an end in the United Kingdom. The works at 
Barrow are, nevertheless, as complete and large as any in 
the world. 

The comfort of the working people of Barrow has not 
been neglected to such an extent as I regret to say it has in 
so many of the industrial centers of England. There are 
workmen's baths, workmen's clubs, workmen's reading- 
rooms, workmen's coffee and cocoa rooms, and, of course, 
as in all British towns, workmen's gin-shops. Barrow and 
IVGddlesboro present to my mind the best examples of Eng- 
Hsh iron centers ; South Wales, Sheffield, and parts of Staf- 
fordshire and Worcestershire the worst. The change from 
iron to steel perhaps more than anything else has had to do 
with the growth of the two great northern centers of the Brit- 
ish steel trade, and the old districts are left far behind. Char- 
coal iron has been made of the iron ore of the district for 
centuries. I was shown a furnace on the estuary of More- 
cambe Bay which was originally built in the year 1710, but 
it was the advent of the Barrow Hematite Steel Company 
that increased the population of the town from 3,000 in 1851 
to 8,000 in 1861, to 18,911 in 1871, to 47,111 in 1881, and to 
55,000 to-day. I have visited the principal iron and steel 



368 BREAD 'WINNEB8 ABROAD. 

works of the world,— including Krupp's, at Essen, Germany; 
Schneider's, at Creusot, in France; CockrOl's, at Seraing, 
Belgium ; Armstrong's, at Newcastle ; Bolckow & Vaughn's, 
at Eston; Bell Brothers', at Clarence, — and must say that 
while some of them employ a larger number of hands, none 
of them are more complete in every particular than the 
Barrow works. A brief description of these works can not 
fail to be of interest in the United States, particularly to iron 
manufacturers. 

There are altogether sixteen blast furnaces, fourteen of 
which are built in a single row, while the remaining two are 
distant about half a mile. The weekly production of the 
blast furnaces averages when fully employed 5,500 to 6,000 
tons. The average height of the furnaces is about sixty- 
three feet, none of them reaching the height of the Middle- 
boro furnaces. The blast is partly heated by Whitewell's, 
partly by Cowper's, and partly by Ford & Banker's stoves. 
The average consumption of fuel is one ton of coke per ton 
of pig-iron made. The ore is obtained at the company's own 
mines in the vicinity, and averages about 60 per cent of 
metal. The consumption of limestone is almost 9 cwt. 
per ton of iron made. The blast is heated to a temperature 
of 900 to 1,100 degrees. Each furnace is fitted with six 
tuyeres, the diameter of the nozzle being three and a half 
inches to four inches. The larger furnaces have a bosh df 
twenty feet in diameter, and the smaller ones a bosh of nine- 
teen feet. The engines that blow the blast are a remarkable 
feature of the iron works. There are three beam and eigh- 
teen grasshopper engines. Of the latter kind there are ten 
in one engine-house. As I stood watching these monsters 
working, the chief engineer of the works, Mr. R. Collenette, 
said, '* You are in the largest engine-house in the world." 

The hoists are inclined planes, and are worked by special 
engines, there being a separate engine for each of the six 
inclines that are attached to the fourteen furnaces. The 
furnaces are fitted up-with the apparatus for the utilization 
of the waste gases, which are sufficient to supply all the heat- 



7. LOTHIAN BELL. 369 

ers and boilers without any other fuel. One of the effects 
of this is to make the Barrow works the cleanest establish- 
ment of the kind in the world. Added to this, the system 
for disposing of scrap and slag is so perfect that no waste 
material is scattered around the adjacent premises. The 
brick around the boilers is whitewashed and the doors of the 
furnaces are blackened, and all rubbish swept up, giving the 
works an unusually neat appearance. 

The blast furnaces are distant about 200 yards from the 
steel works, the intervening space being occupied by sidings 
and filling sheds, and a spacious cast-iron bridge, spanning 
the whole of these sidings, connects the one department with 
the other. The steel works are in three large bays or roofs, 
each 700 feet in length. The productive capacity of the steel 
works is 3.500 tons per week. Eails constitute the principal 
branch of manufacture, there being three large rail mills, 
one plate mill, and one smaller mill for merchant steel. 
There are eighteen converters and twelve steam hammers. 



Lxxxym. 

I. LowTHiAN Bell. 



I ASKED Mr. Bell if he had looked into the question of the 
cost of producing Bessemer pig-iron in England and the 
United States, and he repHed he had given it the most care- 
ful consideration in all its bearings. 

''What is the result ?" I inquired. 

*' Not only did I study the question when in the United 
States," responded Mr. Bell, ''but more recently I have 
been favored by American friends with tabular statements 
of the actual number of men employed at their respective 
furnaces. By comparing these with what may be consid- 
ered the average practice in the best arranged of our 
modem Enghsh furnaces, the comparison points to the 
24 



I 



370 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

conclusion that in those of the United States one sixth more 
men for each furnace is required for producing less than 
half the quantity of iron. Besides this difference, the pres- 
ent average earnings of the staff being higher in America 
than in England, the cost of labor on a ton of pig-iron in the 
particular cases compared is in the former more than double 
what it is in the latter." 

The portion of the above statement referring to the em- 
ployment of a greater number of hands to do the same work 
in the United States is a surprise to me, and I hope some 
of our blast furnace men will explain it. As the labor en- 
gaged in mining, conveying the raw materials to the furnace 
and smelting the ore, forms about 80 per cent of the cost of 
pig iron, it is easy to understand the cost of production is 
nearly, if not quite, double in the United States, but it does 
seem strange that we employ one-sixth more men for pro- 
ducing half the quantity of iron. Mr. Bell is positive on the 
question. Who is prepared to question the statement? 

'' Taking the entire range of iron making as a whole, what 
should you say Mr., Bell, as a free-trader, and as a man who 
has studied the subject for forty years, is the difference in 
the cost of producing iron in England and in the United 
States?" 

'*Ihave arrived," said Mr. Bell, ^^at the conclusion that 
we are within the mark in saying that the entire range of 
iron making, as a whole, costs the American community for 
labor something like double what it does the British nation." 

In some instances IVIr. Bell explained tome that he thought 
this arose from the price per ton or the daily wage actually 
paid being in accordance with this difference ; but he also 
contends that there is another way in which a man may 
improve his position, by insisting on additional help, and by 
himself doing less work. Here we have a free-trader and a 
scientific man examining these facts in relation to the cost 
of production in America and in England and arriving at 
precisely the same conclusion as I have done. Yet hundreds 
of free-traders, who have never taken the trouble to look 



LIVERPOOL— THE IDEA SHE SYMBOLIZES. 371 

into the matter at all, have denied this, some actually declar- 
ing that the cost of labor in the two countries was about the 
same, the difference being made up in the extra ingenuity of 
the American workman and his capacity to do more work 
than his foreign competitor. Mr. Bell flatly denies this, and 
declares that the American workman does less and is paid 
more. 



LXXXIX. 

Liverpool— The Idea She Symbolizes. 

Every city, it has been remarked, symboHzes in concrete 
form some great idea ; and the large commercial cities of 
England of to-day are the embodiments of human science 
applied to facihtate the processes and augment the results of 
human industry. Liverpool, perhaps more than any other 
city in the United Kingdom, symbohzes England's greatness 
as a commercial nation. In appearance Liverpool is disap- 
pointing enough, especially to those who steam into her 
harbor from foreign shores. Little else can be seen through 
the fog and mist but miles upon miles of docks and ware- 
houses, and these only dimly. The clear blue sky and bright 
sun one leaves behind in New York rarely lends its aid to 
beautify the port of Liverpool. It seems to be perpetually 
bathed in mist, fog, or penetrating, drizzling rain, which 
even when broken by occasional gleams of sunshine reveals 
no pleasant spots of verdure, green trees, or clambering 
masses of vine among its solid piles of bricks and mortar. 
Indeed, church-spires and bare masts afford the only breaks 
in the monotonous lines of buildings. There are some hand- 
some public building, but they are blackened by the atmos- 
phere, and have a cold and somewhat gloomy appearance. 
The shops on the fashionable business streets make rich dis- 
plays of goods, and the lines of magnificent equipages, with 
liveried servants, that one sees in the afternoon on these 



372 BBEAD -WINNEBS ABBOAD. 

streets are indicative of the wealth of the place. The club 
houses are palatial buildings and luxuriously furnished. 

The elite of Liverpool inhabit fine houses with conserva- 
tories and elaborate gardens in the outskirts of the town. 
Many of the richer families have houses in London, and 
some dwell all the year around in the rural districts of the 
neighboring counties of Cumberland and Staffordshire. 
Some of these who are called ^' the best people" live in the 
town. In olden times Duke street was the favorite residence 
of the higher class of Liverpool merchants. This street is 
identified with the names of most of the families, who, by 
their enterprise and sagacity raised the port from a petty 
haven for coasters to a world's emporium. The occupants of 
these old-fashioned mansions were once nearly all engaged in 
the slave trade. 

In those days, it has been said, the songs, the dances, and 
the luxurious living of Liverpool sprang from the groans 
and anguish and horrible sufferings of the slaves bought and 
sold by Liverpool merchants. Wives and daughters were 
radiant with the wealth made out of the lives of men, women, 
girls, and boys who had the misfortune to be African and 
not Liverpool born. This commerce, so the local historians 
inform us, appeared to the eyes of the good people of Liver- 
pool alike innocent and profitable. The sugar, and molasses, 
and rum, with a few spices and fruit, which constituted the 
bulk of the returns, had nothing at all of a repulsive char- 
acter in their aspect, and the hardware, clothing, and pro- 
visions which were exported were equally harmless. The 
man-stealing process, the burning of villages, the trains of 
manacled fugitives, the horrors of the barracoon, and of the 
middle passage, never obtruded themselves into the thoughts 
of the polite circles of Duke street. Wealth increased, vast 
fortunes were made in a few years, and the town prospered. 
What more could be required? 

Occasionally, however, 'Hhe best people" of old Liverpool 
received a rude reminder from some outsider as to the 
source of their riches. It is told that George Frederick 



LIYEBPOOL—THE IDEA SHE SYMBOLIZES. 373 

Cook, the actor, upon one occasion when too intoxicated to 
speak distinctly on the stage of a Liverpool theater, was 
greeted with cries from the boxes of the town magnates of 
''Apology!" "Apology!" With drunken gravity. Cook 
stalked to the front of the boards, looked the rich men and 
their dames in the eye, and said, with halting tones but the 
most withering contempt, " Apology from me to you? Why, 
there isn't a brick in your town that is not cemented by the 
blood of a slave." 

Riches, one historian informs us, in the case of Liverpool, 
did not bring with them any measure of refinement. 
Down to a comparatively recent period bears were baited at 
the election of mayors. The ceremony was, perhaps, sym- 
boHcal of the sort of life his Honor was likely to have of it 
during his year of office. Despite the brutality of these 
baitings, ladies attended in great numbers and joined in 
the procession to church afterward. On one occasion, not 
more than a century ago, a victorious bull was actually 
taken, with a halter of honor around his throat, by a party 
of biped brutes into the box circle of the Royal Theater. 

It is not surprising that a race of men who delighted in 
this sort of sport should be rudely aggressive in any cause 
they espoused or opposed. An example of the rude chivalry 
of Liverpool may be found in the way they supported Queen 
Caroline through a.11 her trials and tribulations. On the 
Queen's acquittal, it is said, there was a procession of 35,000 
people in Liverpool. The church-bells were rung, the 
shippers displayed their flags, the multitude sang a version 
of '^ God Save the Queen:" 

* ' Great George, our King, incline 
To smile on Caroline; 
May all her cares be thine, — 

God save the Queen." 

At the theater the same spirit was frequently exhibited, 
and an artist who pleased an old-time Liverpool audience 
was as likely to suffer as much from their approval as from 



374 BREAD WINNERS ABROAD. 

their displeasure. To tear up the forms in the gallery and 
throw them into the pit was one of the playful forms of 
demonstration that more than once occurred in a Liverpool 
theater within the memory of those now living. This spirit 
asserted itself at the local elections, which were usually 
spirited, not to say expensive afEairs. 



XC. 

LivERPOOLr— Enriched by the Blood of Slaves. 

The slavery that enriches the Liverpool of to-day is not so 
far removed from the city itself, and hence it is not surpris- 
ing that the rich and fashionable prefer not to live within 
the sound of its bells. With the single exception of some 
parts of London, the poverty, vice, and squalor of Liverpool 
exceed those of any other English city. There are miles of 
streets in which the inhabitants seem to live in the most abject 
wretchedness. Walk down Scotland Road and many of the 
thoroughfares leading into it and you will meet the most re- 
pulsive, the most degraded, the most wretched-looking men, 
women, boys, and girls that can be found anywhere. The 
tenements in which these people live are shocking. It is 
not exaggeration to say that thousands of these nineteenth- 
century slaves occupy less space than is awarded a corpse. 

Low public-houses, disreputable lodging-houses, and 
noisome dens of all kinds abound in these vile neighbor- 
hoods. The magnificent shops and showy equipages of 
Bold, Church, and Lord streets have indeed their contrast 
in the filthy dens, the poverty and misery, not to say vice, 
of Scotland Road and the lower quarters of the city. The 
industrial population of Liverpool is largely of the nautical 
class. Hero we find, too, the prevalence of the representa- 
tives of unskilled labor, the poorest-paid labor in the king- 
dom. The city on the Mersey is the depot and the point of 



LIVEBPOOL— ENRICHED BY BLOOD OF SLAVES. 375 

departure of imports and exports, the principal labor 
employing what are called lumpers, cotton-porters, and 
carters. No technical skill is required in the industry, and 
this may in part explain the cause of the prevailing poverty. 
The statistics of the local government board show that 
pauperism, crime, and drunkenness prevail to a large degree 
in Liverpool. 

Among the most degraded and poverty-stricken classes in 
Liverpool are to be found large numbers of women and young 
girls, generally without shoes or stockings, with ragged 
petticoats, an old shawl tied around their shoulders, and un- 
combed hair falling down their backs, carrying round for 
sale lumps of cooking salt, of soap-stone, of sand-bags for 
draughty doors and windows, and huge rolls of elaborately 
cut tissue-paper for pantry -shelves. The faces of these females 
only become less sodden and brutal by contrast with those 
of the men and boys who peddle various cheap articles, 
which they either carry round themselves or load on a 
huge cart with a tiny donkey, oftentimes covered with sores 
brought on by brutal treatment and insufficient food. Com- 
pared with this class in Liverpool the London costermonger 
is a sleek and well-to-do person. 

Several important industries are carried on in this city, 
notably ship-building, and these industries seem to employ a 
sober and industrious body of men, whose wages are equal 
to those paid in other parts of the kingdom. Liverpool was 
once famous for its watches and its pottery. The former 
trade is of no great importance to-day in England, as 
France, Switzerland, and the United States have secured it. 
The pottery has long since migrated from Liverpool. A 
century ago several of the Liverpool potters had acquired 
honorable distinction in their art. The early earthenware 
made here was of the Dutch type of Delft pottery, with a 
coarse body and thick white or blue glaze; subsequently 
excellent china and porcelain were made. After flourishing 
for a considerable number of years the potteries of Liver- 
pool began to decHne, and at the beginning of the present 



376 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

century but one remained. The growing prosperity of 
Liverpool developed itself in a different direction, and the 
enterprise which might otherwise have found occupation in 
this manufacture found more attraction and scope in foreign 
commerce. The inventive faculties and energy of the 
Staffordshire potters, led by Josiah Wedgwood, forced the 
industry into another channel, and the Liverpool manufact- 
ure decHued as rapidly as it had risen. Indeed, it was to a 
Liverpool man that Wedgwood was indebted for the idea 
of printing on earthenware. John Saddler first made printed 
ware right here in Liverpool. It is said he saw his children 
stick waste prints on some broken pottery, and afterward 
invented the present process of transferring printing. Wedg- 
wood sent his pottery to Saddler to print and thus secured 
the idea. 

It is said of the gentlemen of Liverpool that they are 
ambitious of the reputation of dandies, patronize London 
tailors, etc. On the other hand, ladies' dresses are abundantly 
provided by local modistes, and it is only occasionally that 
costumes are procured from London or Paris. From what 
I have seen in several long stays in Liverpool, I can quite 
beheve the statement in reference to the ladies. Neverthe- 
less, Liverpool life is looked upon as sho wj. The ball-rooms 
of Liverpool are always excellent and enjoyable, and the in- 
vitations are restricted to dancers. The music and appoint- 
ments are good. There is plenty of available room. The 
clubs endeavor to imitate the clubs of London. They are 
generally filled in the evening and there is plenty of card- 
playing and billiards. Temperance is evidently not making 
much headway in this city, as I quote the following from 
an English authority : ^'Wine-shades, bodegas, and saloons 
abound both above and under ground. If they do not result 
in much actual drunkenness, the amount of tippling to which 
they lead and wanton waste of time which they involve are 
deplorable. Twenty years ago the habit of drinking during 
business hours was comparatively unknown at Liverpool ; 
now it is so common as scarcely to attract attention, and 



ENGLAND'S SHIPPING INDUSTRY. 377 

certainly not to carry with it an adequate^degree of stigma." 
I should hardly have ventured this latter statement upon 
my own observation of the business men of Liverpool. In 
the centers of the cloth region (especially Bradford) I have 
frequently had the whisky bottle set out in a manufacturing 
office at 10 and 11 o'clock in the morning; but this was in 
Yorkshire. 



XCI. 

England's Shipping Industry. 

It is in truth the stately river on which it stands that gives 
Liverpool its pecuhar and in some respects unique posi- 
tion among 4;he great towns of England. The forests of 
masts, the spacious docks, the grand ocean steamers daily 
dispatched from its harbors bound to aU parts of the world, 
the constant arrival of ships laden with treasures, the stir 
and bustle of a thousand wharves, the incessant and audible 
throbbing in the machinery — connected with every quarter 
of the earth and every nation under heaven— these things 
are seen in Liverpool as they are seen nowhere else in Eng- 
land. Other ports, as the table I introduce below shows, 
are important and some of them nearly equal Liverpool in 
tonnage, but they all have their special trade. Liverpool 
alone covers the world : 

■D^^t-r, ^With cargo and in ballasts 

•*^""^- Vessels. Tonnage. 

Liverpool 16,225 7,550,948 

Tyne ports 17,038 6,360,243 

London 19,891 6, 120,970 

Cardiff 12,955 4,641,940 

rrv,. n^^A^ J Glasgow 8,633 2,634,561 

The Clyde -j (..eenock 5,192 846,685 

Sunderland 9,228 2,616,095 

Dublin 7,742 2,125,805 

Hull 4, 638 1 ,915, 436 

Belfast 9,310 1,803.262 

Newport 9, 810 1, 778, 745 

Swansea 8,025 1,390,670 

Bristol 8,946 1,186,836 

Leith 3,550 957,266 



378 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

I suppose there is nothing of the kind in the world equal 
in extent to the line of docks at Liverpool^ presenting as 
they do a quayage to wet docks and tidal basins alone of 
twenty -two and one half miles, and a water space of 333 
acres, and which, with land, sheds, yards, quays, and ware- 
houses, cover an area of 1,040 acres. But these figures only 
apply to the Lancashire side of the Mersey Dock and harbor 
estate. On the Chesline shore at Birkenhead there are docks 
with a water area of 164 acres, with nearly ten miles of 
quayage, thus making in all a water area of nearly 500 acres 
and a total quayage of thirty-two miles, in addition to twen- 
ty-two graving docks for repairing vessels, with an aggre- 
gate length of floor of 14,000 feet, the whole estate being 
studded with more or less imposing buildings, such as dock- 
masters' residences, customs and police depots, clock-towers, 
dock-yard offices, and so on, and on the Lancashire side 
traversed by a double line of railway five miles in length. 

One of the first things Liverpool did on becoming a parish 
was to start a newspaper, the Liverpool Courant (1712). In 
one niunber of this paper (containing three days' news) the 
Courant mentions the circumstance of '' one ship arrived,'* 
and of another ^ ^ outward bound for Dublin. " First a church 
and parish, second a newspaper, and the third enterprise 
thought necessary, and I suppose profitable, was a dock, and 
hence the system of floating docks, which I have above 
described, was commenced. It must not be supposed this 
enterprise was begun without opposition. The cheesemong- 
ers of London, who maintained a line of vessels which took 
in their cargo at Sloyne, vigorously contended against being 
made to pay dock dues for accommodations which they did 
not require. From this beginning the docks of Liverpool 
have steadily, and of late years rapidly increased, until the 
city of the Mersey stands like another Venice upon the 
waters ; until the hundred small coasting vessels which at 
first annually came into the dock which the London cheese- 
mongers opposed, has grown to 17,000 and even 18,000 of the 



ENGLAND'S SHIPPING INDUSTRY, 379 

largest vessels afloat ; untU the few thousand tonnage has 
increased to 7,000,000 and 8,000,000 annually. 

A writer unaccustomed, I suppose, to the daily tabulated 
statement has remarked,, *' One's breath is almost taken 
away when the cotton statistics of Liverpool are being read. 
Imagination sees the Pelion of it piled upon Ossa, and these 
upon Olympus, and the mountain still growing in height 
and breadth, and gold being coined out of it faster than the 
stamp could give it circulating value at the mint." But this 
was in the days when Manchester, three quarters of an hour 
by train from Liverpool, was supreme in manufacturing. 
Before continental European nations and the United States 
took to manufacturing on a large scale for themselves, the 
two eyes of Lancashire coined money. The annual transac- 
tion in cotton in Liverpool has of late years fluctuated be- 
tween 3,000,000 and 3,800,000 bales, while the total imports 
for 1882, for example, reached 3,857,695, or nearly 75,000 
bales a week. Between January and June, 1883, the weekly 
importation averaged nearly 88,000 bales, an amount of cot- 
ton if kept up for the year almost equivalent to the entire 
crop of the United States. Liverpool does a large trade with 
the United States, the total value of declared exports aver- 
aging annually from $33, 000, 000 to $40, 000, 000. The imports 
from America will average much more. 

With the growth of Liverpool British commerce has grown 
and extended into every country in the world. Commerce 
and navigation have given England greater wealth than she 
ever could have extracted from her land and mines. Into 
the future of Liverpool or of British commerce we can not 
penetrate. What revolutions may yet come to pass, what 
may be the course of trade as new communications open, 
what new centers of merchandise may yet flourish, it is im- 
possible to say. It does seem, however, that England is in- 
creasing her commerce at the expense of her agriculture 
and manufactures. Her land is going out of cultivation, 
her agricultural population is decHning, her home manu- 



380 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

factures are being displaced by foreign 'goods, which come 
into her ports iree of duty, and she is annually mining more 
tons of her coal, smelting more tons of iron and steel, spin- 
ning more pounds of yam, and weaving more yards of cloth 
for the same amount of money. The growth of British 
commerce of late years has been marvelous, but relatively 
speaking not greater or more remarkable than that of the 
United States. Here it is: 

/ Thousands of Dollars. n 

Imports. Exports. Total. 

1355 195 1,470 1,665 

1573 8,250 9,400 17,650 

1614 10,705 10,455 21,160 

1687 21,000 20,435 41,435 

1714 34,250 40,040 74,290 

1761 51,460 80,195 131,655 

1801 157,100 184,650 341,750 

1835 c 244,560 235,105 479,665 

1855 668,600 579,110 1,247,710 

1880 1,739,380 1,115,300 2,854,680 

The excess of imports over exports continues to increase 
at an alarming rate. The new school of economists say 
this is a sure sign of prosperity. There are those in England 
who differ on this point, and declare that England is Hving 
on her capital. However this may be, it is undoubtedly 
true that England imports many manufactured articles that 
she ought to make at home. It has been calculated that the 
aggregate amount of value of the ten principal manufac- 
tures (silks, gloves, cottons, woolens, iron and steel, boots 
and shoes, clocks, watches, pig and sheet lead, and tanned 
leather) imported into the United Kingdom free of duty for 
ten years is $1,400,000,000. These goods England could just 
as well have made herself. I am unable to see how a sys- 
tem which encourages the importation of goods which a na- 
tion can just as well manufacture itself promotes the wel- 
fare of producers. 

But the great idea which Liverpool symbolizes is com- 
merce. From her mighty port the grandest steamers and 
the veriest ocean tramps sail to the most distant lands, and 



JVEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE—'' CANNY'' BUT *' COALY,'' 381 

to her mighty port they return laden with merchandise of 
every description. There is no part of the habitable world 
that cannot be reached from Liverpool. She is connected 
with New York by a fleet of magnificent steamers which 
move almost with the regularity of trains. They may well 
be called trunk lines connecting the two countries. The 
building of these ocean steamers and the ship-yards of 
Great Britain will afford a topic for the next letter, espec- 
ially as I have nearly completed a tour of the principal ship- 
yards. Any account of British commerce would be uninter- 
esting with Liverpool left out, and if we have dipped into 
the historical in this letter the importance of the subject 
deserves it. 



XCIL 

Newcastle-on-Tyne— * * Canny" but * * Coaly. " 

In the letter from Liverpool I gave some idea of the 
importance and gi^owth of British commerce. In the pres- 
ent letter an attempt will be made to show the importance 
not only of a merchant marine, but of the ship-yards to 
build one. I have pei'SonaUy visited the principal ship- 
building districts in the last two weeks, including the Clyde, 
the Wear, the Tees, Hartlepool, and Barrow-in-Furness, and 
now I am in ancient Newcastle-on-Tyne. Perhaps this 
letter should have been written at Glasgow, as that is the 
most important district. The only excuse for not doing so 
is that the valley of the Tyne has not had so many gleaners, 
and to me at least Newcastle remained comparatively an 
imexplored field. John Wesley once wrote of Newcastle, 
^'Certainly, if I did not beheve there was another world I 
would spend all my summers here, as I know no place in 
Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness." Rowe, 
who visited the place one year later, thought that some- 



382 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

what exaggerated praise for ** canny" but still ^* coaly" New- 
castle, so far at least as the atmosphere is concerned. But 
Wesley seems to have forgotten that on the Sandhill the 
Newcastle mob would have murdered him had not one of 
the Newcastle fish-wives affectionately embraced the dimin- 
utive but dauntless evangelist, brandishing meanwhile the 
clenched disengaged moiety of her ''Ten Commandments," 
and exclaiming defiantly, ''Touch the little mon noo if ye 
dare, ah !" ' ' In Sandgate, " writes Wesley, ' ' after preaching, 
the poor people were ready to tread me under foot out of pure 
love and kindness." But the goodly fish- wife was not the 
only Newcastle woman who played the part of a man. 

During the early part of this century all the bricklayers' 
laborers were women. Without fear or hesitation they 
used to climb the highest buildings, carrying heavy loads of 
brick and mortar upon their heads. They also acted as car- 
riers to the butchers, and on market days could be seen 
with half the carcass of a freshly killed buUock quivering on 
their shoulders. Newcastle was once famous for female 
barbers, and some of them made both fame and fortune. 
They plied their occupation in the open air on the Sandhills, 
having a portable stove to heat the water. 

In spite of the multitudinously malodorous murk that 
overbroods the town and neighborhood it is picturesque, 
and for that matter so is Pittsburg. But then the center of 
smoke and flame in the United States is modern. Ancient 
and modern Newcastle come into sharp and piquant con- 
trast, hard by the elliptical railway arch. St. Nicholas' 
flying-buttressed steeple is incongruously grafted on the 
arch, and the bulging old houses of the Side and the Sand- 
hill look like jolly old burghers loimging in dingy shirt- 
sleeves, with modern dudes supercihously scrutinizing 
through their eye-glasses in juxtaposition with the prim 
plate -glassed piles of offices the expansion of the town's 
trade has caused to be their neighbors. 

Coal lies at the bottom of the wealth of Newcastle, though, 
as we shall presently see, man has done much to make the 



NEWGASTLE^ON-TYNE^'' CANNY'' BUT ''COALY:' 383 

mouth of the Tyne what it is. For miles both banks are 
lined with ship-yards, with smoky factories, and most ex- 
cellent docks. Here is a picture of a trip, say from Blaydon 
to North and South Shields. The population along the river 
from these points, including Newcastle and Gateshead, must 
number 500,000. A jumble of smoke-dried brick and stone 
works, of new brick works, fast blackening, of huge sheds, 
of colHery starths ratthng black avalanches of coal down 
hinged shoots or dropping coal trucks from giddy heights 
through the traps, rises above the shipping on either hand. 
Cranes swing yellow water cascades into the river, fire- 
glowing steam engines send out angry white puffs, chimney 
stalks pour out black coils, machinery clanks, tools rattle 
with a ceaseless, savage energy. There are foundries, fort- 
Uke blast furnaces, torrid puddling forges, whirring, rat- 
thng rolling-mills, chain and anchor works, lead works, 
copper works, plump coned glass works, potteries, chemi- 
cal works, fetid manure works, grindstone wharves, saw- 
mills, oil-mills, cement works, Bessemer steel plants, brick 
works, coke ovens, patent slips, iron and wooden shipbuild- 
ing yards, graving docks, timber docks and docks crammed 
with shipping of every flag, for the Tyne stands second only 
in importance as a port to the Mersey. 

^*But what we are chiefly concerned to see," says Escott, 
**in this coal-blackened antique Northumbrian capital, with 
its immemorial past and its infinite future, its old buildings, 
venerable churches, hoary traditions, its inventions, im- 
provements and devices of yesterday, its busy plottings and 
cunning contrivances for to-morrow, is the influence exer- 
cised by science upon the course of the river." The Tyne is 
no longer the stream which nature made it ; its bed is deep- 
ened; its channel changed. Headlands and promontories 
have been removed and millions of tons of soil have been up- 
lifted from its depths in order that ships of heavy burden 
may float up to the walls of the town. The width of the 
river has been increased from 150 to 400 feet. A point sev- 
enty-five feet above high water— which prevented those in 



384 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

charge of vessels from seeing vessels approaching on the in- 
ner side— has been cut away. The docks have been en- 
larged and a new one with an inclosed water space of nearly 
100 acres, surrounded by 3,650 lineal feet of deep water 
quays, has been built. In consequence of these improve- 
ments, in twenty years the average tonnage of vessels has 
risen from 149 tons to more than 500. 

The principal seats of the ship -building industry in Great 
Britain may be said to be the Clyde, the Tyne, the Wear, 
and the Tees. Here in 1883 (the most prosperous year in 
British ship-building) 928,562 tons of ships were built. With 
the single exception of Hartlepool, which produced in 1883, 
67,065 tons, there were individual firms in the four principal 
districts who built more tons of ships than the total output 
of the other points. At Whitby, in addition to the above, 
were built 13, 662 tons; at Hull, in 1882, 19,542; on the Mersey, 
44,212; Barrow-in-Furness, 16,937; Whitehaven, 9,262; 
Workington, 4,220; Southampton, 34,331; Dundee, 24,386; 
Leith, 16,251; Aberdeen, 11,628; Grangemouth, 4,644; Kirk- 
caldy, 8,983; and Belfast, 41,111. Outside of the four prin- 
cipal districts and Hartlepool, I have given the figures for 
1882, as the returns show a great falling off both for 1883 
and 1884, sinking in some cases to practically nothing. Of 
course, depression in the trade is felt first by the smaller 
yards, and hence while production in the scattering ship- 
yards was greatly curtailed between 1882 and 1883, the ship- 
yards of the north reached their highest output in 1883. 
When in London last week, I had an interview with Mr. T. 
S. Jeans, Secretary of the British Iron Trade Association. 

** Last year," he said,*^ was one of perpetual gloom for 
British ship-builders, unless indeed it should be overshad- 
owed by 1885." 

*' What are the exact facts?" I inquired. 

^' There were," said my informant, "373,898 tons of iron 
and steel shipping in hand on the first day of this year, 
against 729,446 tons for the corresponding day in 1884, while 
1882 opened with 1,264,603 tons in course of building." 



NEWGASTLE-ON-TTNE—''CANNT'' BUT ''COALY:' 385 



The following table, which I obtained from Mr. Jeans, 
gives the tonnage of shipping launched for the two years at 
the ports named : 



1884. 



1883. 



Decrease 
in 1884. 



Clyde 

Tyne 

Wear 

Hartlepool 

Tees 

Dundee . . , 
Leith 

Totals. . 



296,854 
124,221 
99,589 
30,963 
30,336 
12,062 
5,500 



419,664 
216,573 
212,313 
67,065 
81,795 
25,276 
13,722 



122,810 
92,852 

112,724 

36,102 

51,459 

13,214 

8,222 



599,525 



1,036,408 



436,883 



Going back six years, it appears that the first of the above 
ports, which furnish, as I have already shown, over 80 per 
cent of the total, give the following figures 



Gross Tonnage 
Year. launched. 

1879 462,238 

1880 597,905 

1881 781,053 



Gross Tonnage 
Year. launched. 

1882 945,919 

1883 997,410 

1884 c 587,463 



A sudden decrease from nearly a million tons to less than 
600,000 tons. Yet free-traders calmly inform us that these 
sudden fluctuations from periods of great activity to periods 
of gloomy depression, from the days of tremendous profits 
to days of no profits at all, are peculiar to protective coiui- 
tries. Only the other day, when at Middleborough, I was 
told that Bolckow, Vaughn & Co. dropped from a dividend 
of 15 per cent and a share to its stockholders to a dividend 
of 2i per cent ; and of another great British iron firm sud- 
denly coming down from a dividend of 32 per cent to noth- 
ing. 

25 



386 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

XCIIL 
Will Free-trade Newspapers Copy and Explain? 

Free-trade newspapers please copy and explain how this 
is possible under free trade, which, according to your theory, 
is the great industrial balance-wheel regulating trade and 
manufactures. 

Let us go a step farther and see how this decrease in one 
year of nearly half a million tons of production has affected 
the labor. In 1881 the total number of hands employed at 
the ship-building trade of the United Kingdom, according 
to the census was 72,000, equal, Mr. Jeans informed me, to 
about fourteen tons of new shipping per man per annum. 
Assuming the same average, he estimated that 88,600 men 
were employed in 1882, and 94,900 in 1883, which I have 
shown was the most profitable year. In 1884 the number 
decreased to 59,200, a falling off of 35,700 hands. The effect 
of this has been both sudden and appalling. Thousands 
have been obliged to seek rehef from the parish, while idle 
and half -starved men may be seen in vast numbers loitering 
in the public squares of the ship-building centers. Here at 
Newcastle the only busy establishment which I visited in 
that dark row of gaunt sheds on both sides of the river was 
the place where the implements of destruction that annihi- 
late armies— the Armstrong cannon— are forged. 

I see that some of our friends in the United States want 
to make out that things are worse at home than here. I 
doubt if they can show a more sudden dive from the ped- 
estal of prosperity to the gulf of gloom than this of the 
British ship-building industry ; and I know that they can 
not show such a steady and disastrous decline in any pro- 
tected American industry as that presented in the letters on 
the rise and decay of the British silk industry. And if they 
still persist in the fallacy that free trade is a sort of com- 



1 



WILL FREE-TRADE PAPERS COPY AND EXPLAIN? 387 

posing draught, keeping the vast industrial system of a 
country from a feverish condition, I will send a table of 
dividends paid in the iron and steel trade a year or so ago, 
and now, that may surprise those who have been led to 
believe that sudden changes of this sort only come to pro- 
tective countries. 

England is already feeling the effect not only of the dull 
times in the ship-building trade, but of foreign bounties. 
Should Germany pass the merchant marine bounty bill, and 
should the United States decide to extend to our shipping 
industry the same protection which it has given to all other 
industries (as proposed by Senator Don Cameron, of Penn- 
sylvania, in a recent speech), England may never again 
reach the product of 1883. I quote the following from the 
last issue of the London Shipping World : 

*^ At the present time there is an iron boat running on the 
Thames which was built under Enghsh supervision in a 
Continental ship-yard, and one of our leading ship-building 
firms has started a branch establishment in Norway in order 
to gain the advantage of lower prices and more tractable 
workmen." 

Exactly what has been done in the silk industry, in the 
worsted industry, in the woolen industry, in the flax in- 
dustry, in the jute industry, in the cotton industry, in the 
iron and steel industry, and in nearly every other industry. 
England stands near at hand with wide-open ports for 
surplus stocks made by foreign instead of native workmen, 
while the British workman stands idle in the market place. 
The Shipping World further remarks : 

'^ It is hoped that no such disaster will ever overtake this 
country, and that the Thames vessel referred to, and the 
Norway yard, may not prove the beginning of the end. It 
may, no doubt, be premature to say it is so yet, but the facts 
are, nevertheless, worth noting." 

At Armstrong's works yesterday I was told by Com- 
mander Hubert GrenfeU, of the Eoyal Navy, that the estab- 
lishment of a gun factory by that firm in Italy was a settled 



388 BBEAD-WIFNEBS ABROAD, 

fact, and that it would probably lead to the building of a 
ship-yard also. At least 80 per cent of the labor to be em- 
ployed are to be Italians. 

What does this mean? 

Another customer lost to Great Britain, and probably in 
time additional surplus stocks from Italy to displace British 
labor. 

At Barrow I met Mr. William John, having been fur- 
nished with a letter of introduction to him by Mr. Charles 
H. Cramp, of Philadelphia. Unfortunately the dullness of 
the shipping trade has almost closed the Barrow works, 
though the day of my arrival the contract was closed for 
two new ships second only in size to the City of Eome, 
which was built in this yard. I found that Mr. John had re- 
cently been investigating the subject of the prospects of 
steel ship-building. In 1879 he said the total tonnage of steel 
ships was not over 22,000; in 1880 it reached to 38,000; in 
1881 to over 70,000 tons; in 1882, 128,000; and in 1883 to con- 
siderably over 150,000. Last year I find the figures for steel 
ships as follows: 

SUMMARY OF STEEL VESSELS. 

Number. Tonnage. 

The Clyde (about) 128 131,128 

The Tyne 18 10,564 

Various districts 29 22,337 

Total 174 164,029 

The total percentage of tonnage of steel to iron for the 
years named are respectively 4.88, 7.26, 9.79, 14.0, 15.37, and 
more than 25 per cent in 1884. The tendency as we have 
seen is in the direction of steel for material in building ships. 
In the matter of speed the Alaska and Oregon still lead, 
though the Etruria and Umbria, two remarkable Cunard 
steamships to come into service this year, constitute an epoch 
in the history of ship-building, and give considerable justifi- 
cation to the belief sometimes expressed that the proportions 
of the Great Eastern will in time be surpassed. These two 



WILL FBEE-TEADE PAPERS COPY AND EXPLAIN? 389 

vessels will each be of 8,000 tons burthen, 500 feet long and 
57 feet broad by 40 feet depth of hold; engines of 13,000- 
horse power, which it is computed will drive the vessels at 
a speed of not less than nineteen knots an hour. The trans- 
atlantic passage will thus be reduced to six days, if not 
indeed considerably imder that period. But this involves 
the building of two classes of vessels, one for passenger 
traffic and the other for the conveyance of cargo. The 
future Atlantic ship will be a vessel which shall have large 
passenger accommodation and a high speed, with a compar- 
atively small first cost and a reasonable consumption of 
coal. 

I can not close this bird's-eye view of British ship-building 
without a word about the other shipping districts. Like 
Newcastle, Glasgow has been made a shipping center. The 
shrewd, far-seeing Scotchmen practically brought the sea to 
Glasgow. Had it not been for this, instead of the second 
commercial town of the kingdom, the Scotch metropolis 
would have been a mere inland provincial place. The Clyde 
has been deepened and widened at a cost up to 1883 of $50, 
000,000 — no inconsiderable sum. But it has paid. But for 
the deepening of the Clyde ship-building above Dumbarton 
would have been impossible. The Comet of 1812, although 
engineered ia Glasgow, was built at Port Glasgow. Now, 
the majority of the yards are within six miles of Glasgow, 
five, including that of Napier & Son, being within the pre- 
cincts of the harbor, and the largest of all (the yard that 
produced the Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, and later the Etruria 
and Umbria), John Elder & Co.'s, within sight thereof. 

During the years 1871, 1872, and 1873 the output from the 
Clyde yards averaged 50 per cent of the total shipping pro- 
duced throughout the United Kingdom. That high propor- 
tion fell for the years 1874, 1875, and 1876 to as low as 37i 
per cent. In 1882 the Clyde's contributing to the grand total 
did not exceed 32i per cent. It has remained at this propor- 
tion. 

Whether it was the river Wear that made Sunderland, 



390 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

or Sunderland that made the river Wear, may be difficult to 
decide ; but certain it is that not one of the maritime bor- 
oughs has had a harder, a braver, or a more protracted 
struggle than the town at the mouth of the Wear in seeking 
to overcome the obstacles with which nature has incum- 
bered its path. The year 1863 may be described as the 
opening of the age of iron on the Wear, 17,124 tons of ship- 
ping having been launched. The increase was rapid and 
continued until in 1883, when 207,254 gross tons were built. 
Sun^lerland has been termed the most American town in 
England. In growth and enterprise this may be true, but 
in appearance I must dissent. The streets are as narrow as 
Yarmouth rows. The people of Sunderland are certainly 
engaged in trying to push one another out of the road. Ex- 
cept Washington street, Boston, I know of no place in which 
life is made up of so much shoving and pushing as in Sun- 
derland. 

In the several other districts, of course, ship-building is 
carried on to a considerable extent. Barrow-in-Furness, 
though doing little or nothing now, is likely I think to ad- 
vance. The Clyde, the Tyne, and the Wear have reached 
their highest point. Belfast occupies a prominent position, 
not alone because of the large annual output of tonnage, but 
by reason of the number of high-class ocean steamships 
which have been and continue to be built there Dundee, 
Leith, Hull, Southampton and other places throughout the 
United Kingdom are not without claims to recognition as 
ship-building points— but this letter has already exceeded its 
limits. 



XCIV. 
WoRSTEAD— A Specimen of Mediaeval Humanity. 

One of the most joyous English spring days I ever experi- 
enced is just closing. Seated in the neat parlor of a quaint 



WOBSTEAD—A MEDIEVAL SPECIMEN. 391 

old inn, whose grotesque gables, thatched roof of ivy-clad 
walls, and picturesque appearance bear traces of a touch 
from the hand of other ages, I shall attempt to give an ac 
count of a visit to an English village which is probably en- 
tirely unknown to Americans. The floor of the room I oc- 
cupy, white from regular scrubbing, is sprinkled with silver 
sand. The large range is as black and shiny as black lead 
and elbow grease can make it. A number of prim looking 
modern mahogany chairs are placed at painfully regular in- 
tervals around the room, obtruding their machine-like nine- 
teenth century origin among the antique surroundings of 
the middle ages. The window of the room consists of small 
diamond panes of glass held together by a frame- work of 
lead, and from this window may be seen pretty much all that 
remains of the ancient town of Worstead, now a decaying, 
silent village, but once a vigorous, thriving center of the 
worsted trade, famous alike for being the first place where 
the manufacture of worsted was carried on and from having 
given the name to one of the most important of all textile 
manufactures. 

I arrived here early this morning from Cromer, an old 
watering-place on the eastern coast of England, or rather, to 
be more accurate, of what is left of Cromer, for every now 
and then a shce of Cromer has the bad taste to slip away and 
is buried in the sea, and when the tide is low ttie walls of the 
ancient church of Cromer peer up from the surrounding 
water, half a mile from land, like a grim specter of the deep. 
Ancient Worstead itself is a couple of miles from the modern 
station of that name. 

The walk is through a lane shaded by high hawthorn 
hedges and oak trees and across green meadows. The sun 
shone brightly, the sky was a hazy blue, the birds were 
singing delightfully, and the fragrance from the budding 
trees, the fresh grass, and endless varieties of wild flowers 
greeted me as I took the road to walk to Worstead. The 
scene was enchanting. On either side a hedge fifteen feet 
high with a grassy base, profuse with primroses, daisies, 



392 



BREAD -WINNEBS ABBOAB. 



bright yellow plantagenet, and here and there peeping forth 
violets white and blue. Then came the hedge of budding 
hawthorn and dark green holly, entwined in every nook 
with rich ivy, and every rod or so sturdy oaks, the trunks of 
which were likewise ivy-clad. In the distance were the deh- 
cate outlines of the place where wool was first manufactured 
in England, as early as the reign of Henry I. (1100 to 1135). 
The magnificent church, with its flying buttresses, high 
tower, fine battlements, and elaborate pinnacles, one of the 
finest in England, and upon which in early days, when a lu- 
crative business was done here, immense sums of money 
must have been lavished, is the most striking object. 

There is a sort of conscious antiquity about the village 
which one feels on entering it. The little rows of cottages, 
the window-sills of the second story of which I could — though 
only 5 feet 8— touch with my hand, in spite of coats of mod- 
ern plaster over their flint walls, were once occupied by 
Flemish workmen and resonant with the spinning-wheel and 
hand-loom. Here the Flemish dames obtained worsted yam 
by the rude and primitive method of spinning on the rock, 
that is, the simple distaff of the ancients. The occupation 
in England then was as it is now in many parts of the Conti- 
nent, notably Crefeld, Germany, a domestic one, scattered 
among the rural population of the county, forming the house 
labor of mother and daughters. 

In a field near by formerly stood what the villagers here 
call the "old church," last used in 1222: the new edifice 
(finished in 1320) I have already described. This church has 
had a continuous line of vicars from Johannes de Gummer, 
who flourished in 1256, to the present modern incumbent. 
In one of the modern houses, probably a couple of centuries 
old, — for the most fashionable houses of Worstead of the 
present day are old enough to have been occupied by Crom- 
well's troops, — was found Mr. John Starling, clerk of the par- 
ish, poet, and historian of Worstead. 

Quaint as Worstead with its many-gabled houses is as a 
specimen of mediaeval architecture, Mr. John Starhng as 



WORSTEAD—A MEDIAEVAL SPECIMEN. 393 

a specimen of mediseval humanity was several degrees 
quainter. 

'^ A gentleman from Philadelphia interested to learn some- 
thing about the town where woolen goods were first made in 
England, and from which worsted goods derived their name," 
I announced as the venerable clerk opened the oak door of 
his early EngUsh residence. 

The village historian and parish clerk was a small man, to 
use his own oft-repeated words, ^'nigh onto eighty years of 
age," who had spent his entire life at Worstead, and whose 
wife, a hale old lady of eighty-three, in the background, 
was the oldest inhabitant of the place. 

*^ Yes," said this latter fine old specimen of Norfolk lon- 
gevity, ^'father can tell you all about the Flemings and 
about Worstead as it used to be. Why, he has worked 
eleven years at his history, early and late." 

^^For three and fifty years," chimed in Mr. Starling, ^^I 
have been clerk of the parish;" and then turning affection- 
ately and admiringly to his worthy spouse, he broke out into 

poetry— 

" There is one thing I'm proud to say, 
We've had our golden wedding day." 

** I am told at the inn you are something of a poet, Mr. 
Starling?" 

*' I do a bit in that way sometimes," he replied, and the an- 
tiquated clerk then proceeded to give me while I stood in 
the neat parlor a brief account of his life in rhyme. Coming 
from a dried-up little man who for half a century had said 
Amen in the self -same place on each succeeding Sunday, who 
had tolled the bell for the village dead, and during the whole 
of that period looked serious at every christening and added 
solemnity to every marriage, the effusion sounded droll 
enough. Here is a specimen : 

** Hundreds of christenings I have seen, 
At many marriages have been ; 
The saddest tale I have to tell- 
More oft I tolled the funeral knell." 



394 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

Again, speaking of his domestic life: 

** We have toiled hard, but got no wealth, 
But thankful we are both in health. 
We lived together it appears 
Exactly three and fifty years." 

Having completed the history of his life, the old man sud- 
denly said: 

**I)o you beheve in figures ?" 

Not quite understanding what he meant I ventured : 

''Of course I do." 

''Well," he quickly responded, "my figure is four; yes, 
four. I have hved in four reigns ; have tolled the bell four 
times for the royal family ; have lived under four bishops, 
four vicars, four curates, and four church wardens. Then, 
again, I have buried four church wardens, four servants 
from the hall, four parish clerks, and four Sunday-school 
teachers. During my life there have been four different vil- 
lage postmasters, four glaziers, four carpenters, four car- 
riers, four blacksmiths, four tailors, and four shoemakers. 
I have taken the census of Worstead four times, and I could 
give you a score more reasons why my figure is four. Cu- 
rious, is it not ?" 

I found that this quaint old man, with his doggerel and 
queer numerical conceits, had actually written an elaborate 
history of Worstead and its early trade ; that he had carefully 
stored away in the vestry of the church every stone and 
every curiosity found in the neighboring district, until he had 
a small museum of antiquities. His history he had himself 
copied in a copper-plate hand into a large folio of many 
hundred pages, and had profusely illustrated it by creditable 
drawings of his own. I spent several hours with this book, 
much to the delight of Mr. Starling, and from what I ob- 
tained therefrom and from some other sources I am enabled 
to present the first part of our account of the worsted indus- 
try. The data for the second part, which will be largely 



ENGLANiyS PROTECTIVE POLICY. 395 

statistical, will of course emanate from Bradford and Hali- 
fax, in Yorkshire. 

It is, I think, a well-established fact that the Flemings who 
were so skillful in the productions of the loom that it was 
said of them the art of weaving seemed to be a peculiar gift 
bestowed upon them by nature, originally settled in Wor- 
stead, and thence found their way to Norwich, commencing 
the great staple manufacture of that city, which made it at 
one time second only in importance to London itself. By 
the latter end of the reign of Edward I. in the fourteenth 
century, the worsted stuffs of Norfolk had become famous. 
One of the principal reasons for the trade seeking the eastern 
counties was that Norfolk was the great wool-growing county 
of England. Norfolk wool had been sent to Venice long 
before the Flemish had become famous for their textile 
goods. Later Norfolk supplied the Dutch with wool, for Old 
Fuller, wise and witty, in commenting on the institution by 
the Duke of Burgundy of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 
** wherein, indeed, the fleece was ours, the golden theirs, so 
vast their emolument from the trade of clothing." 



XCV. 

^EIngland's Protective Policy, 

The history of worsted undoubtedly shows that cloth- 
making flourished in Norfolk long before the time of Edward 
III. (1327-1377), though not a few historians credit this 
monarch with introducing the industry. What Edward did 
do was this : He extended and gave encouragement to an 
industry which his sagacity enabled him to see was of vast 
importance to his subjects. His marriage to Philippa, the 
daughter of the Earl of Hainault, whose subjects were ex- 
cellent cloth-makers, enabled the king better to appreciate 



396 



BREAD 'WINNEB8 ABROAD. 



the importance of this industry and prompted him to invite 
hither a large .number of the most skillful workers. 

The invitation was extended in the same manner as the 
United States now extends invitations to the nations of 
Europe to send their most skillful artisans. Edward, it is 
needless to say, was a protectionist. In the quaint language 
of his times he told the skillful Flemings that his people 
were '^ as yet ignorant of the art of cloth-making, knowing 
no more what to do with their wool than the sheep that 
wear it ; and as to any artificial and curious drapery, their 
best clothes are no better than frieze, such their coarseness 
for want of skill in their making." The Dutchmen of the 
period were pictured as bemoaning their slavish lot ; whose 
masters treated them more like horses than men, ^^ early up 
and late in bed, and all day hard work and harder fare 
(a few herrings and moldy cheese), and all to enrich the 
churls their masters, without any profit to themselves." 

If they came to England, what welcome awaited them! 
They should be fed on fat beef and mutton '^ tiQ nothing but 
their fullness should stint their stomachs." They should 
share the profits of their own labors, and the '' rich yeomen 
of England would not disdain to marry their daughters to 
them, and such English beauties." Thus tempted, the Dutch 
servants left their old masters and sought refuge in Edward's 
domains, bringing with them their trade and their tools. 
Soon after the arrival of these foreigners Norwich became 
the most flourishing city in all England by means of its great 
trade in worsteds, fustians, friezes, and other woolen 
manufactures; '* for now the Enghsh wool, no longer sent to 
Italy and the Netherlands, there to be manufactured, being 
manufactured by English hands, an incredible profit accrued 
to the people by its passing through and employing so many 
sorters, combers, carders, spinners, and weavers." Norwich 
at that time had a population of 70,000 within the walls— an 
enormous multitude for the age— and in the surrounding 
district not less than 150,000 were employed in this the 
greatest manufacturing industry of the kingdom. 



IN PETTICOATS OF STAMMEL BED, 397 

But how was the industry brought into this channel? By 
the most stringent protective measures. In 1337 Parliament 
enacted — 

1. That it should be felony to transport any wool of Eng- 
lish growth beyond the sea until it be otherwise ordained. 

2. That all foreiga cloth- workers should be received from 
whatever parts they came, and have privileges allowed them. 

This was the sort of protection that laid the foundation of 
England's industrial greatness. Before the close of Edward's 
reign the textile manufactures, and especially the branch 
under consideration, had reached, compared with the cir- 
cumstances of the age, a mighty growth. The worsted pro- 
ductions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were un- 
doubtedly very fine. Garments of Norfolk cloth and beds 
of Norwich stufi are mentioned in the wills of the period. 
Bed hangings were made of worsted, and as the best man- 
sions were then mostly unplastered, the bare walls were 
either covered with tapestry or other woven material- 
Large quantities of the goods were exported from the ports 
of Yarmouth and Lynn in Norfolk, and Boston in Lincoln- 
shire. 



XCYI. 
In Petticoats of Stammel Red. 

It is impossible within the space at command to f oUow this 
industry through aU its vicissitudes. I have searched in vain 
among the old books in the Norwich Library to find some 
accounts of the society of those times. There is enough of 
the old city left with its narrow, winding streets and antique 
buildings to picture it, but of the thousands engaged in mak- 
ing yarn, of the real workers, we know but little. I find an 
allusion in an old book to one wealthy manufactiu^er of 
worsted, who in Henry VIII. 's time is said to have employed 
200 maidens in spinning wool, who worked together in a 



398 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

chamber, or, as we should now term it, a factory. They are 
thus noticed : 

** And in a chamber close beside, 
Two hundred maidens did abide 
In petticoats of stammel red, 
And milk-white kerchers on their heads." 

A quaint picture, this, for an artist. How unhke the fac- 
tory girls of Bradford, the present seat of the British worsted 
trade! Beauty it was once said had in Norfolk a native 
home ; and Beauty's daughters still abound in old Norwich. 
What wonder then that the factory girls of ancient date were 
graceful and fascinating in their red-worsted petticoats and 
kirtle or jacket, with a white kerchief thrown over their 
heads ! In the general upheaval of society that followed the 
reformation the trade of Norwich suffered. The general dis- 
tress and want of employment by the poor spinners was 
zealously fanned by the hundreds of ejected monks, and 
attributed to the destruction of their monasteries and the 
reformation. This led to a rebellion in textile districts, 
which was only suppressed after 5,000 of the rebels were 
slain and the leader Ket hanged. Trade was almost ruined, 
and the busy center of manufacture became the resort of the 
idle and dissolute. 

On the accession of Elizabeth to the throne a new era 
commenced. The Protestant refugees from the Low Coun- 
tries and France came to England by thousands, and by an 
actual count in 1582 it was found that nearly 5,000 settled in 
Norwich alone. The Queen, as ^Hhe Protectress of the Ee- 
formed faith," and I suppose with an eye to extend the 
weaving handicrafts of her dominion, encouraged these 
foreigners. The trade of the town with many spires began 
to revive, and in the wonderful pageant when the Queen 
herself visited the city the principal branches of worsted 
manufacture were illustrated, a *' she we which pleased her 
Majesty so greatly, as she particularly viewed the knitting 
and spinning of the children, perused the loombes, and 
noted the commodities." 



A BITTER FIGHT 399 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Norwich had 
reached the position of the chief seat of the chief manufact- 
ure of the reahn. It was distinguished for the opulence of 
its manufacturers and its merchants, the grandeur of its 
buildings, and its high tone of refinement. The Norwich 
weaver obtained high wages for the times. He produced 
the choicest textures; he and his family were well clothed 
and well fed, and also above the ordinary rank in moral and 
social worth. The workpeople of Norwich were proverbial 
for the neatness and cleanliness of their houses, as well as 
for their intelligence and industry. Manchester at that 
time contained 6,000, and Leeds less, while Bradford was an 
unknown Yorkshire village. 



XCVII. 
A Bitter Fight. 



The manufacturers of Norwich in the first part of the 
eighteenth century occupied in wealth and power a position 
similar to the manufacturers of Manchester a century later. 
And they used it in a similar way. The Norwich manufact- 
urers subsidized Sir Eobert Walpole, as the Manchester 
manufacturers afterward did Cobden. By the assistance of 
the Prime Minister they enacted a law to altogether repress 
the use in England of calicoes printed either at home or 
abroad. This act was passed in 1722, and decreed that 
none shotdd wear in Great Britain any printed, painted, or 
stained calico under a penalty of £5, and that after this 
time no such calico should be used as furniture. The Nor- 
wich idea was to make that city the great worsted and 
woolen center of the realm ; the Manchester idea was 100 
years later, and is to-day to make Manchester the great cot- 
ton center of the world, and to crush out all opposition. 
Both have failed. Manchester, against which city the opu- 



400 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

lent Norwich manufacturers obtained their foolish decree, 
began to flourish and grow faster than ever; while, on the 
other hand, the Manchester manufacturers who paid Cobden 
$1,000,000 in hard cash to secure for them the markets of 
the Continent and the United States have hved to see the 
population of their city steadily decrease and the cotton in- 
dustries of hostile nations expand as they had never done 
until the one-sided system of free trade was introduced. 

In the struggle against Manchester Norwich was frus- 
trated. The statute was evaded in various ways, and the 
** Manchester men," having with their town and trade risen 
into importance and wealth, had suflicient influence in the 
councils of the nation to obtain favorable legislation. Nor- 
wich, defeated in its efforts to obtain favorable legislation, 
determined to compete with Manchester in the cotton in- 
dustry, but altogether failed. Failing to compete in a cheap 
line of goods, Norwich manufacturers turned their atten- 
tion successfully to the finest worsted goods, and sought 
foreign markets. There were no dyers and finishers in the 
kingdom equal to those of Norwich. Worsted textures 
were forwarded thither from all parts of the kingdom to be 
dyed and finished. By the close of the eighteenth century 
Norwich manufacturers had become merchants as well, and 
traded to the Baltic, to Germany, Holland, Spain, and Por- 
tugal, and through them to the great markets of Brazil and 
South America (then at the acme of their glory), to Italy and 
China by the India Company. These were the palmy days 
of Norwich. Every weaver of any consequence had his 
goose or some equivalent for Sunday dinner. The young 
bloods of the town were educated in foreign languages and 
travel, very much as the young men of Liverpool are at the 
present time. 

I have shown in this letter how from the old Norfolk 
town, from which I write, this important industry started 
at a very early period and obtained its name ; how the 
manufacture increased and spread, Norwich becoming the 
seat of the trade, and occupying in its day a position not 



NORTHAMPTON— ST. CBISPIN'S TRADE. 401 

inferior to Manchester at the present time. From this 
period of opulence the trade seems to have declined, and at 
the commencement of the present century the ascendency 
of Norwich as the chief center of the worsted trade began 
to decline. The development of the factory system in York- 
shire, in addition to the lowness of wages at that time in 
the northern part of England, tended to transfer to the 
north the coarser kinds of goods, and finally the other 
branches followed the changed condition of the trade. In 
those days, compared with the Norfolk weaver, the weaver 
of Yorkshire presented many points of contrast. Frugal 
and industrious, sustaining himself and family principally 
with oatmeal porridge, oat bread and milk, sparingly par- 
taking of butcher's meat, the latter could and did labor for 
wages much below those of the eastern and southern comi- 
ties. The Norwich workers also were slow to adopt machi- 
nery. Thus arose the worsted manufacture of what has 
been termed the Apennine region of England, — Bradford, 
Halifax, Keighley, Colne, and so on. 



XCYIII. 

Northampton— St. Crispin's Trade. 

** There is nothing," says Sir Charles Bell, ** more beauti- 
ful than the structure of the human foot, nor perhaps any 
demonstration which would lead a well-educated person to 
desire to know more of the anatomy than that of the foot. 
The foot has, in its structure, all the fine appHances you see 
in a building." The town I write from has for centuries 
been the head center for the coverings of these marvels of 
delicate mechanism— of countless milhons of feet. Here 
are made boots and shoes of all kinds, from the clumsy foot- 
gear of the veriest bog-trotter to the coverings of **the 
26 



402 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

human foot divine" that has formed alike the subject of the 
poet's strains and of the shoemaker's skill: 

'* Her pretty feet 
Like smiles did creep 

A little out, and then, 
As if they started at bo-peep, 

Did soon draw in again." 

flow often— and I appeal to my lady readers now— have the 
tender memories of the past been brought up by a sudden 
glimpse of httle shoes, the relics of childlike forms, and the 
memory of ^ ^ tiny feet !" The grace, beauty, and harmony that 
we see in these little feet, I am told, would continue through 
life if it were not for the cramped and unnatural coverings 
of modern times. The ancient sandal was by far the wisest 
covering ever devised, and man himself has done much to 
destroy the beauty of the foot. No record has been kept of 
the man who laid the foundation of the trade of Northamp- 
ton b.y first adopting a covering for the foot. The following 
would indicate that boots of some kind were used in the 
work: 

** When from the ark's capacious round 
The world came forth in pairs, 
Who was it that first heard the sound 
Of boots upon the stairs?" 

To which a Northampton shoemaker promptly replied: 

" To him who cons the matter o'er, 
A little thought reveals, 
He heard it first who went before 
Two pairs of soles and 'eels." 

There is poetry, and pathos, and wisdom, and wit enough 
in the history of shoemaking for a volume in itself. And 
the least interesting part of it would not be the disciples of 
St. Crispin, for many of them have been famous in war, in 
politics, [in law, in arts, letters, theology, science, and in 
poetry. 



m 



NOBTHAMPTON—ST, CRISPIN'S TRADE. 403 

**The Crispin trade! What better trade can be? 
Ancient and famous, independent, free! 
No other trade a brighter claim can find. 
No other trade displays rdore wealth of mind, 
No other trade prouder names can boast 
In arms, in arts— themselves a perfect host! 
All honor, zeal, and patriotic pride : 
To dare heroic, and in suffering tried." 

The number employed in the manufacture of boots and 
shoes in England, owing in large measure to foreign tariffs 
and free importations into Great Britain, is steadily declin- 
ing. The mmiber of bootmakers in the United Kingdom in 
1861 was one for 103 inhabitants, and in 1871 one for 126 
inhabitants. In 1871 the census returned the number em- 
ployed in the industry as 235,477; in 1881 as 216,536, a 
decrease in one decade of 18,841 persons. Unlike the iron, 
the cotton, the woolen, the worsted, and the silk industries, 
the industry of making boots and shoes is scattered through- 
out the kingdom. Every town, every village, and every 
hamlet has its shoemakers, and hence, though the total 
number employed exceeds 216,000, the manufacture is in no 
place concentrated as those industries just mentioned. It 
forms the chief manufacture of two towns— Northampton 
and Norwich— and one of the chief industries of Leicester. 
Of the total number of shoemakers in the kingdom the 
counties of Northampton, Leicester, and Norfolk employ, 
according to the census of 1881, 50,000, divided as follows : 
Northampton, 25,000; Leicester, 17,000, and Norfolk 8,000. 
Northampton may be said to be the center of the heavy 
trade (that is, chiefly men's), Leicester the lighter goods 
(the product being mostly women's), and Norwich miscel- 
laneous. 

It is proposed in this letter to deal with the social condi- 
tion of the workers of Northampton, as the most important 
boot and shoe town of the kingdom, and as typical of the 
present condition of the trade. At the same time, further 
along, will be given a table showing the rates of wages paid 
in a Leicester shoe factory. Northampton has a rare his- 



404 BBEAD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

tory. It was once a walled town not unlike Chester. 
Conquering William gave it and the surrounding country 
to Waltheof , a noble and valiant Dane ; but, unhappily for 
Waltheof , he was compelled to take with it William's niece, 
the vixenish Judith, who soon after betrayed her husband 
to the Norman, and Judith became a widow and Northamp- 
ton had no owner. William next commanded Judith to 
marry his old blacksmith knight, Simon de St. Liz. Judith 
demurred because the noble Norman was lame, but her 
daughter offered to accept him, and Simon gladly enough 
married the substitute, built him a castle, a round church, 
and sundry other edifices, the remains of which may now 
be found at Northampton, or, at any rate, in the Guide to 
Northampton, for the Northwestern Eailway Station occu- 
pies the site formerly occupied by Simon's castle, and the 
stones nearly two centuries ago found their way into old 
Dr. Doddridge's famous nonconformist's chapel. 



XCIX. 

Ancient and Modern Snobopolis. 

In its day the old castle was famous. Eobert and Henry, 
the sons of England's first Norman king, met here and tried 
to settle their differences ; but Henry, the colder nature of 
the two, muttering to himself, turned away from his brother 
with no answer. Here, too, Henry II. tried to patch up 
matters with his barons, and with Beckett the gallant 
Richard I. stayed there several weeks. That illustrious 
junketer and princely deadhead. King John, quartered 
himself once in Northampton Castle, *^that he might con- 
sume provisions due him in lieu of rent." John must have 
done a good deal of this ^* boarding round" in the War of 
the Roses. We all remember the Battle of Northampton. 
In the second civil war Northampton sided with the Parlia- 
ment, and was altogether too quick for the Cavaliers. 



1 



ANCIENT AND MODERN SNOBOPOLIS. 405 

They raised £5,000 and 300 horse for Cromweirs cause^ and 
had two ordnance ready for the king's troops when they 
came to take the town. After two hours the Cavahers took 
flight. Charles II. never loved Northampton, though I 
notice they have his statue in a Roman toga and a French 
wig. He ordered the castle to be taken down and the stones 
to be distributed to any loyal person " who would speedily 
and thoroughly take it down." Some years later almost the 
entire town was destroyed by fire. 

Northampton can boast of a newspaper started by the 
Diceys in 1720, and imtil recently owned by this family. It 
has just been sold to a company of gentlemen, of whom 
Labouchere is the leading spirit, and after being 165 years 
in one Conservative family becomes a Liberal journal. I 
was permitted by the manager to examine the early files of 
this journal, the office having a complete bound file from 
the first day of issue to the present time. Among the curi- 
ous things in this file are the complete mortality reports, 
which strike the reader of to-day as very outspoken: ''died 
of drunkenness," *'died of gluttony," etc., are items we 
rarely see nowadays. It was the old clerk who prepared 
these reports for Northampton who asked Cowper to write 
the '* annual verses" that accompanied it, and in compliance 
the poet wrote the weU-known words : 

*'Like crowded forest-trees we stand, 
And some are marked to fall; 
The ax will smite at God's command, 
And soon shall smite us all." 

After enjoining those who run to ''read the awful truth," 
he says: 

''These truths — though known— too much forgot, 
I may not teach in vain." 

And concludes with this : 

'* So prays your clerk with all his heart. 
And ere he quits the pen 
Begs you for once to take his part 
And answer all — amen." 



406 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

I was shown the original copy of this particular report, 
which was printed at the Diceys'. Mortality reports and 
cock-fights, with occasional bear-baitings, seem to have been 
prominent among the diversions of the Northampton folk a 
century or more ago. Advertisements of cock-fights may 
be found in the files of the old Mercury : 



Three Crowns. 

Cock-fighting : £2 a battle. 

Good ordinary each day after the fight. 



Yet the public opinion which permitted these advertise- 
ments and patronized these exhibitions, together with bear- 
baiting, was shocked because the editor of the Mercury 
found a place in his columns for a poem on the famous Mrs. 
Oldfield, the actress: 

*'Here! here! the poor remains of Oldfield lay; 
Gay was the pit whenever she was gay; 
Coquettes would blush and jilts would envy bear, 
To see themselves so well performed by her; 
While every air our admiration draws, 
And every exit echoed with applause. 
But when our Scottish Mary was her part, 
Or Martha fighting for her Jubias' heart, 
Or when enthralled with Sophonisba's cares, 
The stage became a sea of briny tears." 

And the abject apology for publishing this poem may be 
found in the copy of the paper publishing the advertisement 
of the cock-fight : 

*^A place having been allotted Mrs. Oldfield in West- 
minster Abbey," says the editor, ^' we had hoped our chaste 
readers would not be offended at the poem." 

Space will not allow us to dwell longeron these interesting 
scraps of other days, though this last incident carries with 
it a lesson for the present time and one near home. It is 
impossible to mention even the names of the famous men 
of Northampton. The descendants of the family from 
which our own Washington came are said to live near by, 



A SERMON IN 284 WORDS, 407 

and the descendants of the Dryden and Cowper families 
are well known thereabouts. One of the former I met in 
an old book-store, and a most affable and unassuming 
gentleman he was. 



C. 

A Sermon in 284 Words. 

Here, too, preached the famous Dr. Dod, who was met 
one day upon the high-road by some bacchanals and com- 
pelled by them to preach a sermon on an old stump from a 
text of their own choosing. They gave the Httle man 
**Malt " as his text and bade him proceed. 

** Beloved," said he, *^I am a little man, come at short 
warning to deliver a brief discourse upon a small subject 
to a thin congregation, and from an unworthy pulpit. My 
text is 'Malt,* which cannot be divided either into 
words or syllables, it being but one. I must therefore reduce 
it into letters, MALT. 

**M is Moral; A is Allegorical; L is Literal; and T is 
Theological. The moral is set forth to teach you drunkards 
good manners ; therefore, M, my masters ; A, all of you ; L, 
listen ; T, to my text. 

''The allegorical is when one thing is spoken and another 
is intended; the thing expressed is Malt, which you bacchan- 
als make M, your meat ; A, your apparel ; L, your liberty, 
and T, your text. The literal is according to the letter: M, 
much; A, ale; L, little; T, thrift. 

"The theological is according to the effect it produces, 
which I find to consist of two kinds : First, respects this 
life; second, that which is to come. The effects which it 
produces in this world are in some M, murder; in others A, 
adultery ; in all L, licentious lives ; in many T, treason. The 
effects consequent in the world to come are : M, misery ; A, 



408 BREAD WINNERS ABROAD, 

anguish: L, lamentation; T, torment. And now, beloved, 
first, by way of exhortation: M, my masters; A, all of you; 
L, leave off tippling; or, secondly, by way of combination: 
M, my masters; A, all of you; L, look for; T, torment. 

'* Now, to wind up the whole and draw to a close, take with 
you the character of a drunkard. A drunkard is the annoy- 
ance of modesty, the spoil of civihty, his own shame, his 
wife's sorrow, his children's curse, his neighbor's scoff, the 
alehouse-man's benefactor, the devil's drudge, a walking 
swill-bowl, the picture of a beast, and monster of a man." 

With this extemporaneous phihppic, the little man got 
down from his unworthy pulpit and left the paralyzed 
drunkards in amazement. 

There is rapidly arising from the ancient center of the 
British boot and shoe trade a nineteenth-century North- 
ampton,— a Northampton with better streets and good 
parks, with a handsome railway-station, a decorated Gothic 
town-hall, mechanics' institute, free library, opera-house, 
corn-exchange, detached villas of white and red brick, and 
rows of comfortable two-story cottages for the more thrifty 
of the mechanics, who have made the town famous for cen- 
turies. This is the Northampton one sees when passing on 
the main line of the London and Northwestern Eailway. 
The old town is full half a mile from the station, and to 
ahght and spend a few days at the old George Inn, which 
Daniel Defoe described in 1760 as ^ ' looking more like a palace 
than an inn, and costing about £2,000," and in wandering 
through the shoemakers' quarters, one will come away with 
a very different idea of the place. 



CI. 

How THE Shoemakers Live. 

To learn how many of the shoemakers Hve, one should 
explore Grafton, Harding, Crispen, Scarletwell, Compton, 



HOW THE SHOEMAKERS LIVE. 409 

Frances, and Castle streets, and Spring, Sawfit, Chalk, Pike, 
and Quart Pot lanes. Here in the narrowest and most forlorn- 
looking streets, splashed with slops and littered with gar- 
bage, are dwellings which almost baflBle description. Little 
miserable plaster houses, with the plaster falhngoff in spots, 
giving them a blotchy, mottled appearance ; speckled houses 
of reddish-brown and yellow ochre ; houses with tiny doors 
not more than five feet high actual measurement, with such 
tiny bits of rooms, and damp-looking cellars at the back in 
which hammer away the celery-white-complexioned shoe- 
makers; houses, too, that looked hke the houses children 
drew, with the frame of the door sprawUng out at the bottom 
and the windows stuck in at random; houses with many 
gables ; houses with red tiles and gray stone and drab slate 
roofs. Paint, whitewash, brownwash, and yellowwash — all 
seem to have been used to give variety to the color of the 
houses of Snobopolis, the lower half of some of the build- 
ings on the better streets being painted black. But there 
was nothing fresh or clean about all this paint and wash, 
such as one is accustomed to in a Northern-German or 
Dutch town ; on the contrary, it was musty, mildewy, and 
decaying, like the houses themselves at the workingmen's 
quarters of the town. Dirty children quarrehng, grubbing 
in the dirt, racing, squeahng, squatting in rows like 
roosting draggle-tailed fowls, or huddled together on 
door-steps holding sickly babies; vixenish women and 
beery men in and outside of low '' pubhcs." These are some 
of the sahent features of Northampton proper. 

An air of boots and shoes pervades the whole town. The 
bulk of the work is done in the mean cottages of the opera- 
tives, and this conversion of the home into a workshop 
destroys entirely homelikeness. The frame of the small 
front door on either side has a black, greasy patch, caused 
by the constant rubbing of the strings of shoes and fagots 
of uppers that are carted in and out of the house in the 
course of the year. The door itself has a similar blackened 
appearance, and oftentimes the wall of the front room. 



410 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD. 

These, together with the constant tapping as of some one 
making coffins, are the signs of the half -workshops, half- 
homes of Northampton shoemakers. 

On the afternoon of any day just preceding a day of rest 
or a national hoHday, the working population seem to be 
carrying boots and shoes of all kinds and all conditions, 
from the stacks of soleless uppers to the bag or bundle 
of finished shoes. Pallid, unshaven men, with short clay 
pipes, smeared faces, and smudgy aprons, hastening to the 
factory with strings of boots ready for the finisher. Nor is 
the Northamptonshire shoemaker above making a beast of 
burden of his wife. Women may be seen in all directions 
struggling with immense bundles and baskets of boots and 
shoes, Ukewise the boys and girls. 

It must not be supposed that this industry is carried on 
in Northampton the same as with us. The factory system 
is to-day less in favor here than ever. 

''And why? " I asked Mr. Manfield, of one of the largest 
firms in town. 

''Because," was the prompt reply, "we can manufacture 
cheaper by giving out the work and having it done at the 
homes of the men." 

Many of the largest firms merely do the cutting of the 
uppers and the soles on the premises, the " closing," " mak- 
ing, "and " finishing " being all done off the premises. The 
uppers are ' ' closed" generally by women, who are paid by the 
dozen, and come for and bring back the work. By working 
hard for a week they can make about $2.50 on the average. 
The uppers are then "passed in, "as they term it, and go 
out with the last for the " maker," who is paid from 10 cents 
to 30 cents per pair. After adjusting them, the maker has 
to take them to what is called the "trade sewer," who 
stitches or screws the soles on at so much a dozen, the work- 
men, of course, paying for this. Then he calls for them, 
rubs down the sole, and puts on the heel, and the shoe is 
"made," but has yet to be finished. The amount of carry- 
ing done by hand seems, from an American standpoint, 



THEY WANT FREE TRADE, 411 

excessive. The uppers are first taken from and are returned 
to the factory; then the uppers and soles and lasts are taken 
by the *^ maker" to his half-shop, half -home; then he takes 
them to the ** trade sewer," and they are again returned to 
the ** maker." Next the maker '* passes them in" to the 
factory, and if the factory does not employ finishers they 
must again be carried to and from the finishers. When we 
remember, therefore, that in Northamptonshire 25,000 per- 
sons are engaged in this trade, and most of them in the town 
from which I write, it is not surprising that on certain days 
the whole town seems seized with a mania for carrying 
stacks and fagots and baskets and bundles and strings of 
boots and shoes. 



cn. 

They Want Free Trade. 

Yet with all this extra amount of labor England could com- 
pete with our factory-made boots were it not for our tarifi". 
Said Mr. Manfield, an exceedingly poUte gentleman, who 
gave me many facts during my stay here : 

*^ Give us free trade and we will beat you all to nothing." 
How can it be done ? By the simple method of grinding 
down labor to the lowest cent. It is almost impossible to 
say what these Northampton shoemakers earn. A first- 
class and steady hand can make $6 to $7.50 a week if ho 
has steady work ; but then the caiTying must be done by 
some other member of the family, and he often obtains help 
at home in this way. This is the employer's side of the 
story. I found a good number of men who did not make 
on an average more than $3 or $4 a week. Then these so- 
called *' trade sewers" and "middlemen," or, as they are 
called in the Black Country, "foggers," contract to do work 
for reputable firms who would be ashamed to squeeze labor 



412 BREAD 'WINNERS ABROAD. 

to the verge of starvation themselves, but are perfectly 

willing to profit by it, providing some other fellow turns the 

crank. These men, too, utilize the labor of women and girls, 

but th€ pay is exceedingly small. Below I have obtained 

the average rates of wages paid to persons enployed in a 

Leicestershire boot and shoe factory, but there is no way of 

obtaining a similar statement from those who work at their 

homes : 

Rate of 

Description of Occupation. Weekly Wages. 

Clickers (men) $6.30 

Clickers (lads) 2.00 

Sewing-machinists (men) 7.30 

Sewing-machinists (women) 3.60 

Sewing-machinists (girls) 1.25 

Rough-sUiff cutters (lads).- 1.90 

Riveters (men) 6.00 

Riveters (lads) 1.75 to 3.00 

Machine operators (men) 7.00 

Machine operators (lads) 1.75 to 3.50 

Finishers (men) 7.50 

Finishers (lads) 3.00 to 3.50 

Warehouse hands (lads) 1.25 to 3.00 

Warehouse hands (girls) 1.50 

Stock-room men 5.90 

The above figures I know to be rehable, but I have not 
the rates paid in American shoe manufactories with which 
to compare them. 

The morals of the Northampton shoemaker, I regret to 
say, are decidedly of the quart-pot-lane order. It was not 
long since that an English writer of authority said a large 
proportion of them were decided members of the ^'alcoholic 
persuasion." The town is literally studded with gin- palaces 
and grog-shops. Fascinating bar-maids dispense drink with 
a surprising degree of reckless dexterity, not even measur- 
ing the **quartens" and ^^half-quartens," but guessing at it 
and drawing it haphazard into tumblers. From the por- 
tals of these places emerge, especially on Mondays, unshorn, 
unkempt men, with filmy eyes, staggering, and looking "" as 
wise as owls." You see them swaggering to their abodes, 
now and again embracing a lamp-post and gazing into 



TEET WANT FREE TRADE, 413 

futurity and the opposite gutter. But, for all this, I was 
assured that the morals of the center of the British shoe 
trade are better than formerly. There is still room for 
improvement. And in this even an EngHsh authority like 
Doctor Rowe agrees. '* There is," says he, " many an intel- 
ligent, temperate, industrious, frugal, generally moral 
Northampton shoemaker ; but I am afraid there are many 
more shoemakers in Northampton to whom such attributes 
could only be ascribed in most satirical irony." 

The section of the town I described above forms part 
of Mr. Bradlaugh's district. In reply to the question 
whether Mr. Bradlaugh represented the religious views of 
the community, the answer was that his canvasses had 
always been avowedly political, and in no sense religious. It 
is, however, undoubtedly true ^'that there are many free- 
thinkers among shoemakers, some of them sensible, ear- 
nest men; and others shaUow-pated, blatant coxcombs, who 
love the sound of their own voice, more especially when it 
is saying something which they think will wound the feel- 
ings of those who are considered more reputable members 
of society than themselves." 

There is a Theater Royal at Northampton, and an opera- 
house. The former is a square, gray, plaster building, with 
imitation windows painted with black paint, and such other 
wild and weird streaks of red and black paint in front that 
it looked Uke the face of a savage. From the atmosphere 
within, the thought occurred tome that perhaps aU windows 
were Uke those in front, imitation. It was too much, and I 
sacrificed my sixpence. At the opera-house I invested a 
shilling, and found a very decent audience in the pit. Of 
course all had their hats on, and those who were not smok- 
ing at the bars in either corner were holding lighted cigars 
or pipes in their hands. A few policemen in uniform loitered, 
as they always do in provincial theaters, in the background. 
In the dress-circle were the ^lite of the town, some of them 
in fuU dress. The play was "Fedora," and was about as 
bad as anything could be. Though liquor was being used 



414 BREAD WINNERS ABROAD. 

freely, very freely, on all sides, the audience was orderly 
and seemed interested in the play. The physique of the 
Northampton shoemaker is markedly inferior to that of the 
workers in the regions of the North of England. Indeed, 
what has been done for the operatives in many branches of 
manufactures still remains to be done for shoemakers. 
Tailors and shoemakers still need much to be done for their 
health. They are less healthy than the average. 



cm. 

Decline op British Agrioulture. 

The decrease in the total number of persons employed in 
agriculture in the decade ending 1881 was nearly sixteen 
per cent, while the total decrease between 1861 and 1881 
was thirty-one per cent. Thus, while there are nearly one- 
third less persons cultivating the soil than twenty years 
ago, England is becoming more and more dependent upon 
foreign countries for its food. The rapid dwindhng of the 
numbers of the agricultural population of England may 
well be looked upon with alarm. In 1861 the agricultural 
population of the kingdom comprised 20.8 per cent of the 
total population. In 1871 it amounted to only 15.7 per cent, 
and in 1881 it had fallen to 12.4 per cent. 

The above startling facts on the decadence of the agricul- 
tural population of the kingdom will effectually dispose of 
Mr. Bright's rant regarding the improvement of the agri- 
cultural classes in England, and the benefits of free trade 
to British agriculture. 

How does the following — taken verbatim from an official 
report recently made to Parliament— strike those who fond- 
ly talk of the improvement in the condition of the laboring 
classes in England under free trade ? 

^^ At a block of six cottages : one of these cottages is occu- 



DECLINE OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE, 415 

pied by a man and his wife and five young children ; they 
have but one bedroom. The next cottage which your com- 
mittee report upon is one occupied by A, with his wife and 
three children, who have but one bedroom; two children 
here died of the fever ; until death reduced the family there 
were seven persons sleeping in one room. 

**In a cottage occupied by B, a widow with five children 
and a grandson, — namely, a son aged twenty -five, a daughter 
aged nineteen, three more sons aged seventeen, fifteen, and 
eleven, respectively, and a grandson aged five, — there is but 
one bedroom. 

*^In a cottage occupied by C, a tailor, there are four 
grown-up persons sleeping in one room, — namely, the father 
and mother and a grown-up son and daughter. 

^*A cottage occupied by D, who with his wife and five 
children sleep in one bedroom, which, though small, is 
open to the roof. 

'*The next-door neighbor, under the same roof, has but 
one bedroom, in which sleep the father and grown-up son 
and daughter; there are, indeed, two beds, but the room is 
so smaU that there is barely two feet between them. 

'' Your committee report upon a row of five cottages. In 
one, occupied by E, there is but one bedroom, part of 
which is partitioned off, and forms what looks more like a 
cupboard than a room, without door or window or fire- 
place. In this one room, with its open cupboard, a family 
of eight have been brought into the world, and, with the 
father and mother, still use it as their sleeping-place. Two 
sons and one daughter are grown up, and the rest, consist- 
ing of three sons and two daughters, are under sixteen. 
The grown-up daughter has just been sent to the workhouse 
to be confined (she returned in a fortnight's time with her 
child). 

**In another cottage occupied by F, with his wife and 
five children, there is but one bedroom, reached by a 
broken staircase, the two bottom steps of which have dis- 
appeared. 



416 BBE AD -WINNERS ABROAD. 

** In a third, occupied by G, with his wife and four chil- 
dren, there are two small bedrooms, but only one is used, 
because the other is so damp. 

^^ In a cottage occupied by H there is but one room up- 
stairs and one downstairs. In the latter are two beds, in 
one of which lies Mrs. H, bedridden; the other is used by 
her husband. Five grown-up men, a child, and the woman 
who waits on Mrs. H sleep in the bedroom. 

^^In a cottage occupied by I there is but one bedroom; 
the family are father and mother, two grown-up sons, and 
one grown-up daughter. They all sleep in the same room. 
When your committee were there they found, in addition 
to the usual occupants, a married son, with his wife and 
child, staying on a visit." 

Is it possible, I ask in all seriousness, to crowd a more 
terrible account of abject poverty and degradation into the 
same space in a column of a newspaper than we have here ? 
I think not. This is a plain statement from an official re- 
port. It is no exceptional case. There are hundreds of just 
such villages and thousands upon thousands of just such 
cottages in the rural districts of England. Indeed, the 
clergyman of this very village says he will answer for it 
that in the single rural union of which it forms a part there 
are at least four vUlages where the cottages are equally bad. 

And this is an ordinary English country village, with a 
squire and a parson, and the usual charitable appUances, 
including a stately workhouse. 

I cannot beheve, with these facts confronting us, that the 
condition of the English laborer has greatly improved of 
late years. The same terrible conditions of life may be 
found in the large cities as were foimd in 1840, and the 
same conditions may be found in the rural districts. The 
great daily journals wholly ignore these facts. ** What is 
the use?" they say ; ** no good can come of pubKshing them." 
And so matters grow from bad to worse. Mr. Chamberlain 
has recently been exposing the terrible condition of the 
agricultural laborer, and asking how he can live and main- 



LONDON— LABOR AND WAGES— CONCLUSION, 417 

tain his family on 10 shillings a week ($2.40), 7i per cent of 
which amount (according to the above-named gentleman, 
who is President of the Board of Trade) is taken from him 
by the existing unfair system of taxation. What the Brit- 
ish laborer will do when an additional 2,000,000 are enabled 
to vote it is difficult to say. The economic pendulum may 
swing to the other extreme, as it has done in Germany. 
The wage-earners are dissatisfied, a large number of them 
out of employment, and great distress exists in all labor 
centers. Many of the large towns have organized for the 
distribution of food and blankets, and the town councils 
have voted sums of money for this purpose. On all hands 
the complaint is raised that free importations of manufact- 
ured goods and foreign tariffs are responsible for the terri- 
ble degree of this distress, if not for the financial depres- 
sion itself. Nothing like the distress exists in the United 
States as I found here. 



CIV. 

London— Labor and Wage&— Conclusion. 

Judged in the light afforded us by the census of 1880, the 
industrial progress of the United Kingdom during the last 
decade, and indeed the decade preceding it, has been far 
from satisfactory. From these returns we are able to trace 
a number of interesting changes in the employment of the 
industrial population. One of the most discouraging fea- 
tures is the stationary condition of female labor ; although 
the number of females increased between 1860 and 1881 by 
upward of 3,000,000, the number returned as engaged in 
some occupation other than that of housekeeping was only 
a trifle larger at the end of twenty years than it was at the 
beginning. Of course, this may be in part due to the fact 
that women have been withdrawn from some occupations 
27 



418 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

which are unfitted for their sex, and to that extent it is a 
matter for congratulation ; but, on the other hand, the enor- 
mous increase in the number of women classed as of no 
occupation is no doubt largely attributable to the want of 
suitable openings for female labor. There are multitudes of 
women only too anxious to be afforded an opportunity of 
earning a living for themselves, and that there has been 
such a trifling increase in the last twenty years in the num- 
ber who have been able to find employment is much to be 
regretted. 

The number of persons engaged in textile and mineral in- 
dustries for the three decades was as follows: 

1881. 1871. 1861. 

Textile industries 1,053,648 1,036,544 1,025,870 

Mineral 1,277,592 1,156,621 1,012,997 

Distinguishing the various classes of textiles, the numbers 
employed at each census period were : 

1881. 1871. 1861. 

Cotton and flax 586,470 562,015 563,014 

Hemp and other fibrous materials 22, 471 21 , 073 22, 883 

Mixed or unspecified materials 147,873 116,913 83,170 

Silk 63,577 82,053 117,989 

Wool and worsted 233,256 253,490 238,814 

And taking the two classes which constitute the bulk of 
those returned as working or dealing in mineral substance, — 
that is, miners and the workers in iron and steel,— the com- 
parison is as follows: 

1881. 1871. 1861. 

Miners 441,272 376,783 330,446 

Workers and dealers in iron and steel. 361, 343 360, 356 316, 572 

The chief variations in point of numbers, it will be ob- 
served, are in the silk and the mining trades, the gradual 
decay of the former being shown by great diminution in the 
number employed; while in the number of miners there is a 
large increase, attributable in part to the great influx of 



LONDON— LABOR AND WAGES— CONCLUSION 419 

people previously engaged in other occupations which took 
place in the inflation of 1873. As regards the other indus- 
tries, probably the most remarkable feature is the very 
small increase in the number of persons finding employment 
in them. 

Indeed, the number of men at work in the cotton indus- 
try, if we omit the flax industry, diminished instead of in- 
creased during the twenty years ; the augmentation, as will 
be seen from the following comparison of the numbers en- 
gaged in the actual work of manufacture, being wholly in 
the females. 

Niunber of persons engaged in cotton manufacture : 

1881. 1861. 

Males 185,400 197,572 

Females 303,267 259,074 



488,667 456,646 

There is also a decrease in England in the number of per- 
sons engaged in gainful occupation, 11,187,564 being so re- 
turned in 1881, while in 1871 the number was placed at 
14,786,875. For example, the tin-miners of Cornwall in 1871 
numbered 15,543, and only 10,253 in 1881, whfle the produc- 
tion of tin for the same period has fallen 21 per cent. The 
population engaged in making boots and shoes has decreased 
from 235,477 in 1871 to 216,536 in 1881. I have already 
shown the decrease in the number of silk-workers which in 
the decade was 22 per cent, coincidentally with which there 
has been a fall of 55 per cent in the amount of raw silk im- 
ported into the country. Producers of glass, straw hats, 
and straw plait have fallen off very much. 

There is, however, as I have shown, a marked increase in 
the number employed in coal-mining and making machin- 
ery. The one is the removal and consumption of a wealth 
that can never be replaced ; the other is the placing in the 
hands of foreigners the means by which other nations can 
compete with Great Britain. With a similar increase in 



420 BREAD-WINNERS ABROAD, 

other industries, this might be considered a healthy sign. 
With the decrease in every other industry, it is regarded by 
many English statesmen with alarm. The number em- 
ployed in the five principal textile industries has dechned 
from 919,817 in 1861 to 883,303 in 1881, while in the United 
States the number so employed increased 100 per cent dur- 
ing the same period. 



THE END. 



I 



nbifSR.^'^^ Of" CONGRESS 



019 566 926 



